Whew. One month of 2020 is already down. Time is already flying, or it could be my feelings of getting nothing accomplished. LOL But…we won’t get into all of that now. Today is the first Wednesday of the month so that means a new IWSG post.
So this month I was going to talk about all the woes, but frankly I’m tired. Tired of being annoyed about the static nature of things for me. Tired of never feeling like I’m making any sort of progress and gaining any ground in this whole endeavor.
Instead, I’m gonna take it a little easy and simply answer this month’s optional question.
Has a single photo or work of art ever inspired a story? What was it and did you finish it?
I get inspiration from all sorts of places. Dreams, random conversations, songs, etc. You get the idea, but I can’t say that a picture ever inspired a story per se. However, with my writing squad we liked to do a thing called “Man Candy Monday” LOL which is exactly like you’d expect, we would find pictures of men we thought were attractive and post in the group. I mean hey, we’re romance writers, character “inspiration” is always a good thing. Hahaha
Anyway, this guy was one of my contributions. I was intrigued by the eyes first and then I liked the sprinkling of gray in his beard and hair. But mostly the eyes. When the ladies challenged me to move from simple contemporary romance over to erotic romance he became my first character. The rest of the story formed around using this image as my male lead.
After that, I needed to find the inspiration of who would be his leading lady and the story took shape from there. This story ended up being one I had the biggest love/hate relationship with for various reasons. It’s also the first story I queried. And the first story I got an offer on.
I still have a love/hate relationship with it, but it is what it is. The story is complete. Is it a great seller? No, but then again none of my books are so it fits right in, in that regard.
So, if you ever read Anything Once, this image is what inspired Ian Faraday.
That’s it for me. Have a great month.
Great post, Meka! And I love the cover for that book! 🙂
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Thanks! It’s scary with a publisher since I have little say, but they did a great job and made me super giddy.
thanks for stopping by
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Oh my yes, I love character inspiration. I’m not a very visual person, so I really need that photo reference for my descriptions, lol. The time I get to spend looking at eye-candy is just a side benefit! And wow that photo is story-worthy.
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It’s so helpful to have some sort of image to refer back to. Makes doing those descriptions just a little bit easier. LOL agreed! I mean looking at all those photos is a tough job, but scarifies have to be made for our art right? hahaha 🙂 Glad you like “Ian”
thanks for stopping by
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Great cover. I see why you found grey eyes inspiring. Happy IWSG!
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Thank you. The publisher did an amazing job with the cover. And his eyes were what first drew me in. They are amazing.
thanks for stopping by
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I’ll admit it: that’s one sexy boy. I can see how that picture could inspiring some storytelling. Though when I read Anything Once, I was picturing Ian quite differently.
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🙂 He is. A total silver fox. And thank you for reading! I think I did try to change him up a little, made his eyes more vibrate blue, that sort of thing. I don’t go too deep in the descriptions so that readers can form their own visuals.
thanks for stopping by
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That makes sense. Sometimes it’s best to leave things up to the reader’s imagination.
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Oooh! those eyes ARE inspiring indeed!
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Hang in there, Meka. I’ve been in one of those funks lately too. Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate how far we’ve come when we’re focused on how far we want to go.
Don’t give up. You’re awesome. x
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