Step into a new world

Welcome to Muse Crack Mondays! This feature is similar and will be taking over last year's Thursday Thirteen. While last year I posted links to articles in the news I thought was interesting this year, I'm going to focus on particular things that inspire my story ideas aka muse crack. These will also include links from time to time. It'll just be a bit more focused on what inspires my own stories and ideas.

I LOVE this picture. It has more than one purpose for me.

a: the writer in me sees stone portals that go off to other worlds. Or maybe they are time portals that enter into different time periods. I love time travel stories!

b: in general it's the epitome of 'ideas'. Of all the muse crack that is out there. A simple picture or a song...or a saying can spark ideas.

and c: for me it means taking a risk. For thinking outside the box. They say that most plots are overused, that there's nothing original out there anymore. What makes YOUR story different from the others and stand out is how you write it. How you develop your world and characters.

What's your muse crack?

How I Write-- Ideas

This week on How I Write, the question that was posed was about ideas and how we got the inspiration to write the WIP we are currently writing. Or ideas in general.

In a past post, I mentioned that in Fatal Visions (title to change), the idea came from two Playstation games. I was hooked when I was in highschool playing Medal of Honor and Final Fantasy. I was in love with Squall so my J.C. was modeled after his looks. Medal of Honor... secret missions, war... guns... enough said.

I've always loved psychic abilities and the paranormal. I'm not quite sure when my interest in the supernatural began, but once it started, it took a firm root in my imagination. But I also come from an anthropological and science schooling. It's not enough for me to just 'assume' something paranormal. I like trying to examine the workings of it and give it a scientific explanation. So when my characters developed psychic abilities, I had to think of a scientific method to explain it. A virus that mutated the DNA? What if they are latent abilities from our previous evolutionary lines? What if early hominids communicated through telepathy? These were questions that I asked myself and helped develop the main idea around Fatal Visions.

Currently I'm in edits for (working title) Tempting the Shadows. This book is in the same world as Fatal Visions, but in the story, I asked myself, what happens when a person is a familiar to another? What does that do to their relationship?

It's amazing how songs can also influence ideas. For TS, Nickelback is particularly good. One song fits the main characters and how they feel about each other. They have always been there for each other, and will continue to. No matter what. They have gone through some rough moments, not just life threatening situations and no matter what, they stick together through it all, even when everyone is against them. While I write, I'll often listen to it on repeat.



For more stories of inspiration and what drives their ideas, visit my fellow writers and friends:

Danie Ford
Emma G. Delaney
Kimberly Farris
Kristen Koster

Research- When Paranormal Meets Science

I do a lot of research while I write. Yes, with paranormal, the lines blur and I do take that tactic when I can't explain some things, but, a lot of the times, I'm trying to combine the supernatural with science. Maybe it's because of my biology degree, but I can't just not try to explain why something may occur.

Sometimes, you just can't explain something.

But, just because something can't be explained now doesn't mean it won't ever be explained. Some things, we just don't have the knowledge or technology to use. Every day science and technology is growing. For example in January, scientists came closer to creating a cloak of invisibility. We're constantly hearing about medical discoveries like creating blood from stem cells.

So to close our minds off from things that don't make sense at the moment doesn't make sense. We may not understand it now, but we may in the future. I love thinking outside the figurative box. I like exploring the unknown and seeing what can be done. And it's this that influences my books, Fatal Visions in particular.

How I Write-- Idea Creation

Brainchild of Ansha Kotyk, How I Write is a weekly blog series all about writing and the different styles we all have. Click on the banner to go to the homepage and visit other participants or click below. This week is all about idea creation and how we come up with them.

For me, ideas have always come fairly easily. Anything can really inspire me, from something I've seen on tv (the History channel in particular), a song, heck even the rustle of the trees as I walk by could conjure ideas of what could be in there. I've always had an overactive imagination so it was no real surprise when I was a kid and I drifted off into my own thoughts. I'd sit on the hour- hour and a half- bus ride and just look out the window and daydream of boys and adventures and first kisses.

Grown, I still will drift off into a daydream. It's easy on the bus where you don't need to pay attention or while walking home. Everything has the potential to be a story.

i.e. Fatal series-- two Playstation games. I was hooked when I was in highschool playing Medal of Honor and Final Fantasy. I was in love with Squall so my J.C. was modeled after his looks. Medal of Honor... secret missions, war... guns... enough said.

-a few scenes from 2nd book in the Fatal series were based on songs such as: "For Your Entertainment" by Adam Lambert and "I'd Come for You" by Nickelback. Songs are particularly powerful for me and once a song grabs me, it's a repeat song that I listen to all day, pretty much every day.

Muse series--I got this idea from a show on Nostradamus and 2012.

My pirate story-- Came last year when pirates took a captain hostage. I was watching a news clip on it and couldn't help but think that it made a good story when things were flipped around a bit.

My time travel-- a friend told me about someone she knows who does re-enactments and the idea was borne of a little B&B with secrets.

Ideas are all around. What matters is how a person turns them into something more. I call these ideas and the motivation behind them my muse crack. Everything I do, everything I write is based on this muse crack.

For the most part, when I get an idea, it's not the "plot". I don't think in terms of plottiness. First comes the characters and from there... each step as I write builds the plot. I suppose you could say I have a very primitive, bare outline, but honestly, I can't even call it that. It's a mess. Really.

But the point is to let the ideas come. Let everything in. Even if they are bad. You may not jot them down, they may not be the next best seller but you need those bad ones to get the good ones. And if not, then what's motivating you?

Next week: Character/World Building


Kendal Ashby/Corbitt- http://www.twokendals.blogspot.com/ Rated R
Kristine Asselin – http://krisasselin.blogspot.com/ Rated PG
Tatiana Caldwell – http://tatianacaldwell.com/blog Rated R
Jennifer Carson - http://jennifercarson.wordpress.com/ Rated PG
Isabelle Flynn – http://www.isabelleflynn.com/ Rated PG
Ansha Kotyk – http://www.anshakotyk.com/blog Rated PG
Laura Pauling – http://laurapauling.com/ Rated PG
Gail Roarke – http://gailroarke.blogspot.com Rated NC-17
P.M. Rousseau – http://pmrousseau.com/ Rated R

I'm just an addict...

If someone had told me that Fatal Visions would have turned out as it had, I probably would not have believed it. Especially not if they'd included the different plot lines and characters. Why? Because my story has changed so much over the years. When I first began, the story was a smidgen of an idea based on the Final Fantasy game and Medal of Honor.

That was it.

That first draft, I would never even recognize today. I was thinking about it earlier today at Williams with a friend and I can't believe just how much I've done on it. It's not that simple idea anymore. It's so weird how writers can take a seed of an idea... and then go with it and come out with an entire story or even more... a series. Everytime I start something new, it's just a smidgen of an idea. Nothing more.

But then I write as it unfolds. I don't plot. I can't. So ideas come to me as I write... and those ideas branch out into more ideas. And from there, entire chaos can occur. It's fun in one of those-- I don't know where I'm going but it's an adventure-- kind of way.

And when you finish that story? It's a high. So maybe all writers are just story addicts, out for their next hit as they search for ideas. :p

Plot bunnies and new shinies

Nano count 33k

Ever get an idea that comes to you and you just get so excited that you're a bundle of energy/nerves all day? Yesterday was one of those days for me. An idea for a trilogy came along... whispering in my ear. What was I doing when I got this snippet? Watching the History channel. It was doomsday Sunday or something, talking about the Apocalypse and all the signs.

And although my idea has nothing to do with this, it still inspired a what if... and oooh that could be good. Only problem? It's time sensitive. As in... it needs to be done like pronto Toto. So after nano, I'll jump right in. I'll still work on my other projects, they can't avoid me that easily. I'll need to put down Fatal Temptations for a bit anyway to let it simmer.

I know many authors reccommend doing this, putting it down for at least a month. So I'll do that and work on this new idea.

But it does make me wonder some days how I get these thoughts. I mean, for the longest while it seemed as though the random thought would get through but nothing would stick. Lately my muse has been in overtime, doubling its efforts to pump out something that would resemble something interesting. Not that I'm complaining. At all. Indeed...

Those plot bunnies can come around whenever they want if they give me ideas like these...

What do I know?

I'm always in a constant war with myself. I think with a scientific mind... I need to see the science of something. I mean I do have a joint degree in biology, but I digress. I'm a science-anthro article whore. I am always curious about the world we live in... maybe not the politics of it, but the hows and the whys. Problem with this... is that it is way too easy for ideas to come to me.

Problem #2, science is always changing. Therefore, my ideas are always changing. Evolving. I need to stick with an idea and ignore the fact that life and our knowledge is always changing. But that isn't always simple.

This also reflects in my writing because I'll admit that I often am so focused on what is currently thought that I forget to just tell the story and not worry on those little details that probably only a handful of readers would know. You know?

Fatal Visions for instance, is a story of my heart but bless its little plot, it's evolved so many times that in the beginning it was about a virus that gave telepathy... a virus found from Neandertal bones (because it was my theory in highschool that that was how they communicated). I thought that Neandertals were alive in what some would claim are Big Foots or Zetis... Abominable Snowmen, Skunk Apes, etc. And that reflected in my work. Do I still believe this? I don't know but my story has evolved past it into something entirely different and unrecognizable to that first seed of a thought.

My point to this is that things are always changing, no matter what. There will always be something out there. Ideas don't have to change because science has per say... or at least it shouldn't be the focus of it. A story shouldn't have to lose what it was once because of changing marketing trends or something like science. Just keep plugging at it. And that's something that I need to remind myself.

A few articles of interest that I've read today:

Meet the Ancestors
Who Killed the Honeybees? We Did
The Man Who Discovered What Killed the Dinosaurs

New ideas that are old ideas...

They say that there are no original ideas anymore. Everything is reused...over and over again. It's the spin you put on it and your characters that make something that's been used before new/different. I have a confession to make: this is one of my worse fears. You see, one thing that held me back in the past was this fact. I would think my idea is my own... until I read something or watch a show that is similar. What do I do then? Rewrite. It was my answer to it everytime, as though that would change things and this new idea would be different... only to find more similarities.

I still worry about this. But at the same time, I know that it can't be changed much. There will always be something that rings like your idea. For instance, I'm writing a Halloween Full Free Read for Excerpt Monday (due to be posted on Monday) and although I knew my idea wasn't original (I mean it's a time travel idea), there are always similarities like Quantum Leap (which I had never watched or heard of really), and Sliders.

But this is an idea I'm excited about and really want to write. Sure, I could scrap it like my 3 other attempts at a short, but you know what?, I like this idea and it'll be the particular storyline/characters that will make the idea of going back in time and not being able to go back to their own time different. Now, I just have to finish it. Time is running out! Eeks.

Guess I must get to it! How do you handle ideas that are similar to yours? Do you abandon at will or try to twist it in some way?