New Project and Musical Inspiration

One of the funniest things to me as a writer is how much music can affect my mood and my characters.

I was struggling with my first story and had put it aside, not writing on it as much. As a matter of fact, I started writing an AU fan fiction for a book series I had read for my book club instead. I wrote over 30,000 words for that fan fiction in about ten days. That's something I've never done.

Inspiration came, as it so often does for me, in the form of a song. The song Untitled by Simple Plan started coming through the speakers of my car and with it came this awesome new idea for a book. So, here I am officially working on my new project. We'll call it Project 2.

So far in Project 2, my playlist is six songs long and that doesn't include Untitled. I've had some major research to do with this project and for these characters. There are five characters that the story will revolve around but it is told in first person from a female lead.

Let's call her AP. AP has a brother we'll call ZP. AP also has two boys she'll be dealing with other than her brother. AB and NM.

Yes, the love triangle. Those of you who know me know how strongly I feel about the love triangles but you'll just have to trust me that this one is different.

I don't know how other writer's do it but to get a feel for new characters, I jump to a scene I know will happen and try to write it out to get to know the character. I started with AP for obvious reasons, writing the beginning of her story. Next, I wrote a scene between AP and NM with the song Collide by Howie Day as my inspiration. It came on my Pandora and the scene I needed practically wrote itself.

Tonight, I was struggling to get my head in the correct place to find AB's voice. I needed to get a feel for AB but I'm working two jobs right now and my head is fuzzy when it comes to creativity when I get this tired. (Exhaustion, most likely.) But out of nowhere, Pandora delivered inspiration yet again in the form of Broken by Lifehouse. That song screamed AB to me and helped me find his voice perfectly.

I don't always write with music but I'd say at least 90% of my inspiration comes in the form of a song. Not necessarily the lyrics but the tone of the song or even the music video can be inspirational for me at times.

Maybe one day if Project 2 ever gets published, I'll be asked about my writing process and be able to share things like this with my readers. For now, I'll continue to document my journey here ;)

Bookplates

That's right, I'm posting an entire blog in order to get a bookplate from The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. I won an ARC of The Raven Boys last summer and as it is the only signed book and only ARC I own (plus that it's actually my favorite author) I am really hoping to get a bookplate with her artwork. So, here is a picture of me with both my ARC and my hardcover copy of The Raven Boys! And if you haven't read The Raven Boys, you really should. I'm looking forward to The Dream Thieves. Only 105 days left according to my countdown.