Musing with the Brit Babes

I have always find the idea of where a writer’s ideas come from fascinating. Where the thoughts that drive our stories are generated…I’ve always believed in the theory of the muse. That there can be someone or something or somewhere that acts as a trigger to our creative processes. I have certainly got a muse (more about mine tomorrow)- but what do some of my Brit Babes friends think- do they have a muse to play with…

Lily Harlem? Do you have one?

Mmm…muse, where are you? Over here, over there…Nope, I can’t find it.

It’s not that I haven’t got a muse, it’s just that he or she or it is so much a part of myself that I don’t think it’s a separate entity or a “thing”. When asked by my lovely friend Kay Jaybee to describe my muse and its (I do think “it” is the best word here) characteristics I had to really think about the details.

For me my muse is the reel of film in my head that plays out like a movie when I wake up at four in the morning. It’s Technicolour, it’s exciting, dramatic and leaves no detail of my WIP un-described. It taunts me with beautiful lines, snippets of dialogue and perfect adjectives that I really want to remember in the morning and I’m sure I will (but often don’t). It has me tossing and turning, wondering if I should get up and write but then my common sense tells me I’ll be too tired to do anything the next day if I do.

Another time I feel my muse is there is when the house is absolutely still and quiet and I’m sitting in my study at the top of the house. The window has beautiful views across fields and to the hills in the distance – Brecon Beacons – and as I stare out, taking a pause from a scene, I really feel that something is surrounding me, lifting me out of that pretty pink office and taking me to wherever the scene I’m writing is set. Whether it’s Bangkok or Orlando or the Canadian Rockies I’m there and something is with me helping me fade out of reality and into my imagination. Is that my muse? Taking me, transporting me, accompanying me? I guess it is.

My muse, therefore, doesn’t have a name or a personality or fluctuations in temperament, it’s pretty damn consistent and demanding and, of course, wonderfully helpful. The nighttime thing can be a bit of a pain but I’m used to it now and sometimes I even rouse and think “oh good, I can work through that scene now”. But I hope that inspiration, the kink in my imagination and my ability to “see” my stories stays with me, and if that’s my muse, then long may it last because I’m hugely grateful.

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So Victoria Blisse, where does your muse lurk?

My muse loves public transport. I get lots of my best ideas sat on buses or trains. I can’t read or write there because I get travel sick so I just have to let my mind wander and when it goes for a wander my muse starts telling it stories –it’s great.

I’ve always been told I’m a daydreamer, little did I know when I was a kid that my imaginings were getting me ready to one day be an author. The muse was already whispering to me, even before I was old enough to write, I was getting the ideas, the inspirations.

Talking of dreaming, my muse is often active at night too. I will dream a dream and it will stick with me the next day and then it will expand into a story. Making it Real started as a dream of just one scene (my favourite one, with the snowy kiss) and expanded into a whole novel!

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And how about you Lucy Felthouse? I’m guessing it’ll be film stars that set your mind a racing…but which ones?

My muses tend to vary from piece to piece—and sometimes I don’t have a particular muse in mind at all. But for full-length novels, they’re pretty much a necessity—it’s much easier for me to write about characters if I can visualise them. And that’s exactly what I did with Pack of Lies, my just-released paranormal erotic romance novel. In my mind, Hugh Jackman plays one of the werewolf brothers, Matthew. Taylor Kitsch plays Isaac, the other brother. And Daniel Feurriegel plays Nathaniel, Isaac’s love interest. I didn’t “cast” Matthew’s love interest as she’s female, and for some reason I often don’t cast my female characters. The bizarre mind of a writer!

I created a Pinterest board for inspiration on setting, characters and more – check it out here: http://www.pinterest.com/cw1985/pack-of-lies/

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Finally, let’s hand over to Kd Grace…

A lot of my writing friends have sexy muses, muses that look like Aiden Turner of James Mcavoy. I’m not that lucky. My muse is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, female. I don’t know what she looks like because she’s always just out of my line of sight, constantly goading me on with a stick – not a sharp stick, a stick that doesn’t so much penetrate as bruises and hurt like hell if I don’t toe the line.

Mind you, she doesn’t always use the stick. The stick’s just to get my attention and get me going. She knows I’m neurotic enough that once I’m inspired with an idea, I’m a pit bull. But she doesn’t like me thinking too much about anything else once I’m off and writing. She wants me focused to the point of obsession, and an occasional poke with the stick is just a good reminder, especially if it’s followed by just the taste of inspiration. She knows how far I’ll go for a little inspiration, and she knows exactly what it takes to get me there. It’s sort of a Pavlovian response, I suppose, she pokes and I write.

I have no fantasies about her, as I might distractedly have if she looked like Aden Turner or James Mcavoy. I reckon she might look a bit like Medusa, in that if I ever saw her face, she’d have to kill me. But really, I don’t want to see. Not that I’m scared…Well of course I’m scared. But not scared that I might see her face. What I’m really scared of, what makes me break out in a cold sweat and have nightmares is what I would do if she ever left me. And when that happens, when I have that horrible gnawing in the pit of my stomach, that fear of sitting down to the laptop and having nothing come, it’s amazing just how good a bruising hard poke with her stick. It’s truly balm for the creative soul.

Yup! Nice would never be a word I’d use to describe my Muse. In fact I’m sure I’d get a good hard poke if I did. But my Muse knows me. My Muse knows me better than I know myself, and she knows how to access that in me that I fear, that in my that I don’t trust, that in me that I pretend does not exist. She knows how to open up the dark corners and make me see the treasure in the dust motes and the rust. I reckon that’s worth a poke or two with a stick.

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Many thanks to my Brit Babes friends for sharing their muse thoughts with us today- come back tomorrow, for a little look at mine.

Happy reading,

Kay xx