Where Do You Get Creative Inspiration?

At every book signing, one of the questions I can always count on being asked is: "Where do you get the idea for your books?".

My books, much to my publisher's chagrin, do not follow the current popular trends. If they did, I would no doubt be a more successful author. Instead, I follow my heart. My characters all have a basis in reality. Some are even modeled after friends (names have been changed to protect the innocent, she says with a smile and a wink).

I also find inspiration for characters and situations in the news. The short story that recently ran on my website was about a man who worked on oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Currently, I am writing a story about a soldier on leave in Paris.

Inspiration can come from anywhere, if you let it. Anything from a song to a movie to the weather can be the spark for a story. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein during a cold and dreary summer in Switzerland. Had the weather been better, would we have had one of the greatest monster in literature?

Imagination is also a contributor to creative inspiration. Without imagination, Jules Verne would not have pioneered the science fiction genre, and without science fiction would man have dreamed of going into space or exploring the oceans?

Over the years, there has been a mellowing toward certain characters as well. Anne Rice took the feared vampire and turned him into a tragic romantic figure. Stephanie Meyers took it a step further and made her character Edward Cullen a sex symbol.

So, my fellow writers, think for a moment. Where do you get the inspiration for your books? Share your thoughts here; inquiring minds want to know.

From Diary to Publication

Okay, you can throw some things away especially if they get smelly; but I’m thinking about all those journals and diaries you kept as a kid. Come on, I’m sure there are a few people out there who still have a locked diary containing an entry of that first kiss. Perhaps, many of you keep a journal currently. Hello, I'm Judith McGuinness, I'm a romance author and I keep a journal. I started keeping a diary way back in third grade. Yes, I still have it too. As I grew older, my mom could not understand the time I spent writing in the marble notebook that I kept hidden under my pillow. If I had a dime for every time she said, “Why are you wasting your time …” I’d be rich. Anyways, I continued to write. I would write poetry, short stories, paste pictures or other’s works I found inspiring into my notebooks. I’d even write down the lyrics of songs. Some ideas were written on paper bags or napkins and I would later rewrite it. I also enjoyed writing love stories. In high school, my friends would ask me to write a little romantic tale of them with their latest squeeze. Funny, it got to the point where even guys were coming up to me and asking me to write down their exploits. (Maybe that’s how I learned to write erotica?) In 1989, my darling hubby (boyfriend at the time) happened upon me writing one day while we were vacationing in Italy. As he read my interpretation of the past few days, including the steamy midnight activities, I expected him to start laughing at any moment; I never took him to be the mushy, romantic type of man. He didn’t. In fact, he thought it was rather good. “Not Jane Austen, but a real page-turner,” I think were his exact words. Inspired by this review, I began writing more and more short stories. As each new idea popped into my head, I jotted the thought onto paper. There were times, over the next ten years, when I had four or five stories in various stages of completion. I would write them in longhand on the train on the way to work, on planes when my work took me far from home. Eventually, they were painstakingly transcribed onto my computer. Then, in 2005, I was on disability for an extended period. I spent a lot of time reading my stories, adding to them, reworking some of the plots. As I worked on one, a character who had been near and dear to my heart for many years, I began to wonder if it could be published. Having a book published had always been a dream of mine, but none of my stories had ever been complete enough. Perhaps it was time to complete one. By 2006, I had the 122,283-word manuscript for the story of my favorite character, “Macy”. At the end of writing this slightly paranormal romance, I knew that some of the secondary characters deserved to have his own story; thus the birth of a miniseries. iUniverse Publishing offered me a contract in 2007 and Macy was released later that year. Before the Applause is scheduled for release in 2010, and If I Should Love Again in 2012. My advice to you … never throw a diary or journal away; you just never know where it might take you. Now for a little treat. Leave a comment and I will send you the complete short story that has been running on my website.