Inspiration

As writers, we find inspiration all around us. Sometimes we find it in a news article, sometimes it happens while on a moose hunting safari, or a story comes to us while baking a cake or working in the garden.

One of my favorite things to do is spend alone time somewhere unique with my DH (which today means Darling Hubby…tomorrow it might very well mean Damn Hubby. It depends on the day…).  For our anniversary, we went to Ouray, Colorado and stayed in the Wiesbaden Spa and Hotel. It was Amazing!

And I found the setting model for one of the books in my Holy Water Warrior series.

The Vapor Caves

Aside from having quaint, Victorian style guest rooms, the hotel has its own natural hot springs and vapor caves, a private and very intimate grotto with a romantic waterfall, and a history which just   B-E-G-S a story. Case in point? Chief Ouray used to hang out at this spring; before it was a resort, the Wiesbaden was a hospital for the…er…moneyed mentally infirmed; and it has CAVES under the resort! How cool is that? Also, I’m certain it must be haunted. It just must be…

Everything about this place is comfortable, old, serene. This morning, as my DH and I sat in the hot springs, the snow and fog gave the early daylight a gloomy, surreal feeling. Two dozen ravens sat in the bare grey limbs of wintering cottonwood trees across the street and watched us. It made me think of Poe and death and ghosts…

And I realized this was the perfect place for a princess, brutalized and almost murdered by her captors before the hero saved her, this was the perfect place for her to heal and fall in love…

Do you ever have a moment when you’re hit with insight, a realization some particular thing/place/event is going into one of your books?

What's it like?

    What’s it like?

    I spend a fair amount of time trying to figure that out. So do you, probably. If you’re a writer of fiction, things happen to your characters that never happened to you. Likewise, your characters do things that you’ve never done: evil things, noble things, courageous things, things they can’t help and things they relish. What’s it like?

    What’s it like to gouge someone’s eyes out? Or rescue a child from drowning? Kill someone for personal gain? Or in self defense? What’s it like to meet a sentient being from another species? Witness a murder? Be hung by the neck? Save your one true love? Save a people? Save a world? Save a galaxy? Destroy the universe? Sheesh, we writers get ourselves into a hell of a pickle.

    Fortunately, we don’t have to experience everything we write about. Were that the case, my genre would almost certainly be erotica. What a wonderful excuse for hedonism; “I must do research for my book.” But alas, we have imagination, darn it.

    However, raw imagination is not enough. We, as writers, have to direct our imagination, personalize and internalize the scene. If we imagine something as an observer, the best we can do is a newspaper article. To write it like we want to write it, we have to live it in our imagination. We have to be the aggressor or the victim, the hero or the coward or the killer, the rapist, the husband, the wife, the doctor, the patient...you get the point.  We need to be actors. We need to immerse ourselves in the role. We need to imagine ourselves the character and live the scene.

    That’s the way I do it anyway. As I write, my imagination forges ahead twisting and turning, wringing my brain like a threadbare dishcloth. Often, I look up and ask, “What the hell am I doing here?” Then I have to back up and unleash the imagination again.  But, most of the time, my imagination gets me where I need to go; deep inside the head of one of my characters as they endure or perpetrate, flee or pursue, or fight or kiss or whatever. Until I started writing and took control of my imagination, I never knew you could have so much fun and never leave your head.

    Well, reading is kind of like that, but not exactly. Reading is like a roller-coaster ride; you are put aboard and the thing takes off twisting and turning and wringing your brain but your imagination is on rails. Writing is akin to flying an F-15; no rails, you are in control, you, with the help of your trained imagination, direct the action. The twisting and turning are free-form, the route and destination are up to you. That’s what makes writing fun, and torturous, and disturbing, arousing, humorous, frightening and fulfilling.

    All of it is something. Imagining what it’s like to fly on the back of a dragon is exhilarating, imagining what it’s like to be tortured or worse is disturbing. But it’s all important. It’s important because I want to take others where I’ve been. It’ll be on rails for them, that’s true but I want to make it a ride they’ll remember. I want to scare the crap out of them. I want to make them laugh, make them cry, arouse them, make them hate and love, ache and burst. I want control of their feelings. I  want to take them deep inside my characters and give them a dragon ride followed by a little time with a pair of thumb screws. That’s what I want.

    How about you? Do you imagine what it’s like to make love, or whatever as one of your characters?