This week got super busy and I got a little lazy, so I missed out on three letters in the A-Z Challenge. Sorry! Since Sundays are meant to be days off from the challenge, I thought this would be a perfect time to play catch-up on the letters I’ve missed…
I is for Inspiration
Many people often ask me what inspires my stories, how I came up with the idea or premise for my novels and what keeps me writing while I wade through the inevitable muddy middle.
This is a tricky question to answer because inspiration can come from a variety of places and sometimes surprises me, or seems to launch a guerilla attack when I least expect – or want – it. Things that have inspired me in the past have been images, particularly art works such as those found on DeviantArt, music, lyrics, poetry, other books, movies, TV shows and of course real life. It can be something as simple as seeing a person with cool hair on the bus or hearing a snatch of lyrics that conjure a certain setting or relationship in my mind. As far as visual inspiration goes, every time I see something I think has story potential, I pin it here and often return to this board when I’m lacking ideas of my own.
What inspires you?
J is for Journeys
I love travelling. Growing up in South Africa, I couldn’t wait to explore the world and promised myself I would just as soon as I had the cash to do so. Travelling for me began in earnest once I’d finished high school and spent a month in Switzerland and Austria. The travel bug bit hard and in the last ten years I’ve lived on three continents and visited more than 10 countries. Here are some of the places I’ve been.
My goal now is to visit a new country every year and so far, I’ve managed to stick to that. But the list of places I want to visit gets longer by the day!
Where would you most like to travel to?
And now for the last of the letters I need to catch up on, and possibly the most fun because…
K is for Kissing!
I could write a whole essay about the awesomeness of kissing and how much I enjoy the tense build-up in books and movies, those anticipatory moments before the protagonists finally lock lips for the first time. Some of the most memorable fiction kisses for me include when Romeo first kisses Juliet in the Capulet swimming pool in Baz Luhrman’s take on the Shakespearean classic, and when alien Max makes Liz literally see stars while kissing her in the school janitor’s closet in the TV series ‘Roswell’.
Here’s are some of my other favourite kisses…
The Kiss by Klimt
The Kiss by Tanya Chalkin
Do you have a favourite kiss from a book/movie?
