Friday, January 29, 2010

Writing Inspiration



A lot of people have been asking me where I get my pictures for the covers of my books and short stories. I spend a lot of time on Dreamstime.com in the fantasy category looking through images for my writing. I'm lucky enough to have publishers (Gypsy Shadow Publishing, SynergEbooks) that accept my own pictures. (Lyrical Press does their own covers, but they are so beautiful that I won't complain).

Sometimes I even find an image and then write the story about it! This is what happened with my short story Night Dance. Something about the image inspires a story out of me. Now, it's not every image that I see, only certain ones, like the picture above. What do you think her story is? What inspires you to write?

11 comments:

Angie said...

That's a beautiful picture, and what a great way to get inspiration. I like music myself, which I'm sure you understand. A lot of times a song title will strike me as a great idea for a story title, and I'll go from there. I get lots of ideas from my dreams, too.

Kathryn Hupp-Harris said...

Hi Aubrie.

That site sounds great. I'm going to check it out. Thanks.

And thanks for stopping my blog!

Lisa Rusczyk said...

I clicked on her pic to see her bigger and she froze my computer. Perhaps she is the embodiment of an ESorceress, casting browsers into an electrical storm (I get a lot of my ideas from stuff that happens and expanding on it.)

Anonymous said...

That's interesting, Aubrie. I'll check out the website and see if it gives me some ideas too.

Angie, I love music too. Whenever I can't access my music, it really cripples the writing. I usually say music is my muse. LOL

Empi

Aubrie said...

Song titles do help me as well, Angie! Song of the Bard was a flute choir piece that I made into a story. We used to talk about who the bard was in the song and why the song was so sad.

Lisa, I'm sorry the picture did that to your computer! Yikes! I guess she is an esorceress!

Empi and Kat, thanks for stopping by!

Lindsey Duncan said...

It's a gorgeous picture ... but the person in the center looks very ancient and a bit hollow-eyed / creepy, so I could definitely get some interesting fodder for that.

I find that inspiration tends to come from little bits of things colliding at once. Songs (lyrics, titles, music) hit mythology hit historical tidbits hit random what-ifs hit misquotes hit actual quotes ... I seem to very rarely come up with an idea beginning from a single source.

Chandra Ryan said...

That is a beautiful picture. I tend to get my ideas from music. There are certain songs where the mood they inspire captivates me.

Anonymous said...

A beautiful picture. I'll have to check out the site and be inspired.

I enjoy drawing inspiration from pictures, songs, and other outlets of creativity.

The main source of my writing comes from words, one liners, key words, and titles. Sometimes, I'll grab a dictionary and pick out a few words and brainstorm from there.

Diana Paz said...

I can see why that picture would have inspired you. She looks powerful. It's interesting how art influences art.

Your book covers are all unique and gorgeous, btw :)

Aubrie said...

Thanks for commenting everyone! I really appreciate it!

Lisa Rusczyk said...

Don't feel bad - everything freezes my puter. Satellite Internet. Sheesh.