Back from Summer Vacation!

I've been back for almost a week now, but I still want to share some of my vacation with you! I spent an amazing week on the Turkish coast, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea beneath a Blue Moon...

...sipping non-alcoholic cocktails at the pool, while writing and Beta reading on my laptop...

and watching evening shows put on by the resort staff (like this one where they put on these pretty awesome light suits and danced - kinda made me want to write some sci-fi)

It was a wonderful vacation :) And I am feeling wonderfully refreshed and ready to write!

Did you go on vacation this summer? Are you as ready to settle into the fall season for some good writing time as I am?

Road Trip Wednesday

This Week's Topic:

When you need creative inspiration, where do you go?

Road Trip Song of the Week: "Where'd You Go?" - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Hmm, where would I go would result in a much different answer that where do I got, but I'll stick to topic :)

Usually, it's not necessarily a matter of needing inspiration, but a matter of clearing my mind and allowing seedling thoughts to break through the surface. And the place I most often go to kick-start this process is not that exciting: my bathroom. There's really nothing like a steamy bath or shower to get the creative juices flowing!

The second most common place for inspiration to strike is on my commute to and from work! Every weekday, I find a good window seat and stare out the window for a good, solid hour. And like magic, my most gnarled of plots untangle themselves as I ride. It's fantastic :)

Should both those options fail, then it's time for a writing break - That's when I get back out into the world and experience something: go for a walk, meet up with friends, go to a movie, visit a museum, soak up some sun at an outdoor bar or cafe (especially if it's on the river) - you get the idea :)

So, what about you? Where do you go to get inspired?

Right Brain, Left Brain

Today I read about research where the brain was studied while subjects wrote using a computer versus using a pen and paper. Significantly different parts of the brain were triggered when writing by hand versus typing. 

This makes sense to me. Writing by hand requires a different skillset than typing does and I can understand that different instructions might be stored in different sections of the brain. But the researchers took that into consideration too and the differences were still too large to be explained by motor skill differences alone. It was concluded that we think in a significantly different way when typing versus when writing by hand.

I never really considered this possibility. I do nearly all of my outlining by hand and nearly all of my writing on the computer. And now I'm wondering if I'm maybe not reaching my full creative potential. I think I'll try writing the same scene by hand one day, and on the computer the next, to see if I make connections or associations using one method of writing which I didn't make using the other method. I don't know if it will end up being beneficial, but it's certainly an interesting idea.

What about you? Do you do all of your writing by hand? On the computer? Or do you use a mixture of the two methods?

500 new fairytales discovered

Yesterday there was an article in the Guardian confirming that 500 new fairytales were discovered. Do you know what this means? 500 new opportunities to re-tell a fairytale! Exciting stuff.

And on that note, I should be getting to CINDER soon! Have you read any fairy-tale retellings lately? And if you are a fan of fairytales (or have some fairytale writing you're thinking about submitting), check out Enchanted Conversation

Reverse Inspiration

Before I sit down to write a particular scene, I often google images and listen to music to inspire the mood I hope to capture with words. Recently though, the opposite happened. It's been almost a year since I finished a particular scene, but about a week ago, I stumbled upon a piece of artwork which could have been a snapshot of the image in my mind when I wrote this scene. The small details don't all match, but the mood is spot-on.

Here's the image:

Borrowed from Lilif Ilane

And here's the excerpt:

        The walls, velvety black and endless, were studded with what looked like diamonds of various shapes and sizes. The stones twinkled like stars in the soft light which bathed the cavern and fingers of mist trailed through the ghost-like ferns clinging to the water’s edge.
        At the far end of the lake, directly across from the cavern’s mouth, was an emptiness which swallowed the light. She waded toward the darkness, the rising water and lily pads fighting her every step. Finally Selina was close enough to make out the flawless shape of a woman emerging from the rock. She was submerged from the waist down, the upper portion of her body slightly preceding the lower half as she leaned out of the rock. Her long, flowing hair was draped forward over her naked torso and her open palms reached out to Selina, inviting her in. And though a hopeful smile was draped across her beautiful face, it wasn’t quite enough to distract from the scorn and fury in her frozen eyes. Selina shivered under the intensity of that stare.

It's not exactly the same, but close enough to be a bit eery. And close enough to make me wonder what it would be like to flip through an illustrated version of my manuscript. 

The mental image created by a piece of writing has a lot to do with the reader though and I wonder if the writing and the image pair up as well for everyone else as they do for me.