How we are inspired.

On Monday I talked about music and writing. Today I'm talking about something a bit more strange.

Objects.

I'm a deep POV writer. I literally share my head with my characters. Sometimes I wonder if they'll ever leave. Often times I see something and think of a specific character.

I have several necklaces that remind me of certain characters. For example. I wear a bone carving that is "Antony's" necklace. It's from New Zealand. Antony grew up in Dunedein New Zealand.

It looks a lot like these.

Anyway, I wear it when I write his character. I wear it when im working on his books or when I am just needing some Antony Company.

Do you do something similar?

One Thing That Will Kill Your Writing Career

Jealousy.

Yep. I could just leave my post at that. However, let me explain.

One of the first things were taught in Martial Arts both when sparing and practicing is to keep your hands loose.

Why? What is one of the first things we do or describe a character do when we or they experience negative emotion? Clench our/their hands.

What does it do to us? It focuses the negative emotion into something physical. It makes it manifest. In a sparing situation it wears you out. You're wasting energy you could be using to defend yourself.

Jealousy can do the same thing to writers mentally in regards of writing and their writing career. It takes a lot of negative mental energy to be jealous. It can dominate thoughts and make people unbearably miserable. Let alone not a pleasant person to be around.

Instead of writing, a jealous person stalks other peoples websites, Facebook profiles, and Amazon pages and staring at numbers, statuses, and pictures that will do nothing but make them more miserable. They compare themselves to other people that either have had that lucky break or have spent the thousands of hours and written the millions of words to earn their success. In that negative world they are living in, they don't see that they could be the same if they weren't so busy being green. They let those little doubts that could normally be kicked to the curb become insurmountable walls and they have defeated themselves.

I'll be the first to admit that when a friend or acquaintance gets a six figure deal or signs with an amazing agent or publisher or has a massively successful signing or launch I feel a little green. Hey, I'm human. It's what I let it do to me after those initial moments that matters the most.

I let it go. Often times I sit my butt in my chair and open a document and stele my resolve to write something better. Something amazing. Or make new and more ambitious goals, or submit to that agent I was a little timid about approaching.

We have a choice.

Let something like jealousy kill our potential. Or let it motivate us to make us better.

What is yours?

What inspires you?

I am a music fan. I write, play and clean to my music. I do not claim to be trendy. I'm not. I have stuff new and old that I like to listen to. Lately I've been on a older Finger 11 kick. That said I'll hear a certain song and whether it reminds me of a character, scene or story depends on a lot of things. I thought it would be fun to link and talk about certain songs and why they resonate with me.

So today I'm talking about Emergence and a certain song by Onerepublic

It's called Something's Gotta Give



Why does this remind me of Emergence?

The line talking about "staying up all night listening to records that we like". It reminds me of the scenes where Antony and Elite would dance to music from his old record collection. This song is instant stress relief for me. It makes me smile thinking of Antony and Elite enjoying music together.

Helping Write Blurbs

I love to pay it forward. I owe a lot of good Karma to people out there who helped me make it to the realm of published author. Way too many to list although I try occasionally to do that.

When people ask for help I usually jump at the chance to crit something or help promote. Sometimes if asked to read a whole book and crit it I have to pass, I only have so much time in my day and most of that is spent putting out destructo boy fires.

When Maria asked for help with her back cover copy I jumped at the chance. Not only just to help, but also to help feed my muse who loves it when I delve into someone else's story. He loves to start plying in my writing worlds while my analytical brain is in someone else's.

Maria was so excited to get her new 25 word promo and her back cover copy blurb revamped she blogged about me and my new business. You can see it here. Maria's Random Thoughts

And here is my new business: Metamorphosis Author Services