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Tag: muse

Musing It

Yesterday a few of my Brit Babe friends where sharing these ‘muse’ secrets- today it’s my turn!

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There are many things that influence me; overheard conversations, musical lyrics, friend’s fantasies; but at the very back of all that, my driving force if you like, is my muse- a muse who is most certainly female, and is driven by a basic curiosity- a curiosity that always wants to know what is going on behind closed doors.

Not that I’m an eye to the keyhole sort of person (like Maggie in my story Through the Crack; Quick Kink Two, it’s more that I can’t stop my imagination from filling in the blanks. Even when the blanks aren’t even really there to be filled!

If you’ve read my blog on the subject over on the Brit Babes site, you’ll know that I often refer to my muse as Miss Dubious Enterprises. Steering me along my erotic path, my muse takes me by the hand and points me in the direction of every possible source of inspiration.

She prods me as I sit on the bus, and gestures to the couple chatting on the seat opposite, urging me to observe their body language and reproduce their moves on paper at a later date. She reminds me to listen as I stand in shop queues, just in case someone says something I can use to kick start my imagination, once I’m happily settled with my notebook and pen.

Ever since I began my foray into the world of erotica ten years ago, I have seen and heard so many things- so many ordinary things- that my naughty little muse has twisted and turned, a flirty smile upon her face. Each word she utters has been moulded into stories and poems that are designed to – let’s be honest- make the reader feel rather more than hot and bothered!

I wrote A Delivery of Words for my anthology Quick Kink One, after my goddess had pointed out a rather attractive bloke unloading a pile of dictionaries from his lorry, outside the local bookshop. It wasn’t long before my imagination had moved both the man, along with one of the dictionaries, to my home, and started to play with them…

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What could the top floor of a nearby hotel really contain? Is it full of nice normal bedrooms, in which tired out members of the business community can crash after a meeting? Or is it, as in my BDSM series, The Perfect Submissive Trilogy, a hotbed of private services and kinky sex?

When you see a sign on a lift saying ‘staff only’ where does that lift actually take you? When they announce over the loud speakers in the shop or club ‘Would a member of staff come to the storeroom,’ what happens when they get there? Are they sold to aliens for experimentation? Is there some erotically eccentric Sheik waiting to whisk them away to his harem?

That bring me to my highly kinky novella, Not Her Type– with this book my muse really took over- and joined forces with a few of the delivery men with whom I work in my ‘real’ life- and boy did they go to town on the inspiration…if you like your erotica hot, then I’m told this is the novella for you!

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The only trouble with Miss Dubious Enterprises, my ever present muse, is that she never leaves me- never. No situation is too mundane to be used within my work. As I buy shoes, she whispers to me that the heels could be used as a dildo, (Bad Behaviour in The Collector). As I walk in the park, she remarks on how much fun it might be to wank on a park bench (A Leading Conversation in Quick Kink One). She points out a passing bus driver, and tells me that I could write off all his clothes… (Check out my short story Mr Greenline, coming out very soon…)

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Rest assured though, my muse knows the rules, and has never strayed to the criminal, vile or horrific. Yet she never calms, never slows, and never stops- and every now and again- without wanting to be ungrateful my dear muse, I’d like to switch you off!

But not today…

Happy reading,

Kay xx

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?

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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.

Lily's Muse

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?

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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.

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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?

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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!

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

 

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