Tag Archives: inspiration

Inspiration, Take Me! I’m Yours!

July 21, 2015Bloginspiration, mythology, writingK D Grace

(Parts of this post come from a guest post I wrote for Tina Donahue in 2011)

It’s elusive, it’s mysterious, it’s exhilarating, and we erotic writers crave it more than the sex we write about. We chase it shamelessly, we long for it passionately, we would gladly make ourselves slaves to its every whim, and no matter how fickle it is, we always welcome it back with open arms. When it’s with us, it’s at least as good as the best sex. And when it’s not, we mourn its loss like a lover. I’m talking about inspiration, of course. It’s the breath of life for every story ever written and the coveted ethereal presence that every writer yearns for.

The mythological link to inspiration is especially interesting to me in the light of a life-long fascination with mythology. Half of my novels and at least that many of my short stories and novellas find their inspiration in mythology or fairy tales of some sort. I’m writing an online serial, In The Flesh and my present WIP, Buried Pleasures, both have their roots in mythology.

Greek mythology – mythology of any kind, really — is fabulous inspiration for writers. The gods are always dipping their wicks where they don’t belong and finding ever more creative ways to do so. Nine months later, viola! A magical child is born, a child with gifts that will be needed to save the world, or at least a little part of it. But there’s one story that always comes to my mind where the lovely virgin resists, and no wick-dipping occurs. That’s the story of Apollo and Daphne.

The Muses serve Apollo, so of course this myth interests me. Apollo is the god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; medicine, healing, and plague. He is the god of music, poetry, and the arts; and all intellectual pursuit. If ever there was a wick we writers would like to be dipped by, it surely has to be Apollo. Daphne is a mountain nymph and not interested in giving up her virginity to some randy god. While Apollo is pursuing her, she prays to her father, who is a river god, and he turns her into a laurel tree. Ovid claims it’s not Daphne’s fault that she’s not hot for Apollo right back. He claims that Cupid, who is angry at Apollo shoots Daphne with a leaden arrow, which prevents her from returning Apollo’s feelings. But what matters is that she misses out on Apollo’s inspiration.

My theory is that the whole mythology of gods coming down from Olympus, or wherever else gods come down from, to seduce humans is really nothing more than a metaphor for inspiration.

Consider all the different forms in which Zeus visits his paramours. He takes the form of a swan with Leta, he visits Danae in a shower of gold coins, he approaches Europa as a white bull. Writers understand that inspiration can take absolutely any shape, and often the very shape we least expect.

The gods aren’t always gentle in their seductions. Hades drags Persephone off to the underworld screaming and kicking all the way. Zeus turns Io into a white cow, who is tortured and tormented by Hera. In the form of an eagle, he abducts Ganymede and drags him away to Mount Olympus. Writers know well that inspiration doesn’t always come in a gentle form. In fact one of my creative writing teachers used to advise her students to go to the place inside themselves that most frightened them, most disgusted them, most disturbed them, and that’s the place where they would find inspiration, that’s the place from which their writing would be the most powerful.

I’m quite disturbed by the journey In The Flesh is taking me on. It’s the story of a demonic spirit who is irresistable, and insatiable, and gives everything he promises his lovers and more. But the price of passion beyond imagining is high. Of course he’s just a scary stalker bastard with divine powers, but at the same time, I go right a long with the dangerous, even deadly, seduction of Susan. Would you??? I would. Or at least I think I would. Obsession is a harsh master, and not always the giver of rewards promised. Though at the end of the day, most of us would gladly pay the price for inspiration.

Whether inspiration comes in gentle, beautiful forms or whether it drags us kicking and screaming and tears us from limb to limb, the result will be something greater than what it sprang from. From the seductions of the gods, the children born were always larger than life. They were heroes and monsters and fantastical creatures, but they were all born of that joining of divinity and humanity, they were all the result of what happens when something greater penetrates the blood and the bone and the grey matter of our humanity. What comes from that inspiration may indeed be monstrous or fantastical, but it will always be, in the mythical sense, born of the gods.

Which leads me back to Daphne and Apollo. The cost of inspiration is the loss of innocence. We are seduced, we are penetrated, we are impregnated with something new, something fresh, something possibly even frightening, something that we, as writers must carry to term and give birth to. But none of that can happen without yielding to the seduction. Daphne became a tree, unable to move, unable to think, unable to ever be penetrated or inspired. One can only imagine what may have resulted from the willing union with the god of light and truth and poetry and the arts and all the things we writers crave. I’ll be honest, I fantasize about Apollo. I fantasize about inviting him right on in and saying I’m yours. I’ll take all you can give me, and please, feel free to stay as long as you like. Though, in truth, in my fantasy, I skip the dangerous and scary bits. And encounters with inspiration can often be dangerous and scary. I think it’s probably Apollo who inspired my demon lover – a terrifying version of divine inspiration.

There’s a cost to inspiration. It’s the obsession we all know as writers, the one that won’t allow us to think about anything else in the waking world and sometimes even in the dream world until we get the very last word down, until we make it shine exactly the way we conceived it, exactly the way it penetrated us. My heart is racing just writing this because every writer knows what it feels like, and every writer lives for it to happen again and again and again. So yeah, forget the tree rubbish, laurel or otherwise. Inspiration, take me, I’m yours. Have your way with me. I couldn’t be more willing if I tried.

Object Lessons: Silver Crucifixes and Yew Trees

July 19, 2015Blog, Inspirationcreativity and imagination, inspiration, writingK D Grace

I think a lot about the value we place on things, and I don’t mean in a materialistic way. I mean in a writerly way. I’ve always found myself drawn to detritus and things left behind. Everything left behind has a story, and because of that, everything left behind carries its own little bit of magic, no matter what it’s actual monetary value.

I mentioned when I was in Oregon that near my sister’s house there was a trailer park where a pick-up truck had been left derelict, the back end full, as though someone had vacated a flat in a hurry and then left the truck containing all their possessions as well. It was loaded down with all kinds of household items from a wok to a rocking chair, from a mangled computer table to a battered rodeo practice dummy. My imagination went wild. For me it was a treasure trove of ideas to be filed away for future stories.

I’ve found countless gloves and hats and hair scrunchies on walks that I’ve taken. I’ve found money, wallets – which I returned, underwear – which I did NOT return, shoes. At home in my jewelry box I have a bird skull I found on a walk once, bones like ivory, and every delicate one of them in perfect condition – obviously that I kept. On a walk once in Oregon, I found an unbelievably beautiful geode, broken open to expose the beautiful crystals within. Trouble was, it was huge, way to heavy for me to carry back on a ten-mile, very steep trail. But I found it, I saw it, I filed it away for future use. If you follow my blog, you know about all the lovely pyritic ammonites I found on the beaches around Lyme Regis. I’ve found bones, bird eggs, feathers, books and large sparkly rhinestones, belts, buckles, ribbons and bracelets among lots and lots of other things, some valuable, most not so much.

But on this particular occasion, I found a silver crucifix about three inches long, half buried in the powdery dust of the path. There was just enough of it exposed for it to catch the sun as I looked down. I just happened to be walking through a stretch of woodland dotted with lots of very old yew trees. Yew trees are often associated with churchyards and holy places, and at the time I was plotting out the next chapter of my online serial, In The Flesh. That being the case, the crucifix and the yew tree seemed appropriate symbols for inspiration for a story that involves a demon lover in a deconsecrated church.

So far the crucifix itself hasn’t figured into the story, but it definitely inspired what happened next. As for the yew trees,
well, when a good bit of the story takes place in an neglected overgrown church yard, it seemed appropriate for me to spend some time, clenching the crucifix in my hand and wandering among the yew trees. I took dozens of pictures and worked out at least that many scenarios in my head for the week’s edition of In The Flesh.

Afterwards, I stuffed the cross in a small pocket in my backpack and forgot all about it until just yesterday when I was digging around for something else, and I was reminded again how often detritus is a touchstone for story. So often, even when that detritus is not something shiny and silver and something worth hanging on to, it can be the seed of story, or at the very least the seed of an idea that will become a part of a story. Things for a writer, as often nothing more than prompts, and sometimes those things would be totally insignificant to anyone else. On the other hand, the same piece of seeming rubbish that inspired one writer to a romance might inspire another to a horror story – especially something as evocative as a silver crucifix or an abandon pickup truck full of an anonymous person’s possessions. What makes something valuable is more often than not based on what its emotional attachments are. The value of a wedding ring, for instance, is much more valuable for what it represents than it is for itself. When a good
friend of mine got a divorce, I remember going with her to a jewelry store to sell her diamond engagement ring simply because it no longer represented what it had when she wore it for love. In fact, it now evoked almost the opposite feelings in her.

My good friend, Kay Jaybee often tells people that she can write about anything, that any object can be an inspiration. It’s true. But some things capture our imagination more than others and when that happens, it’s time to hang on to our writer’s caps and enjoy the ride.

The Truth About Dressing for Success

July 15, 2015Bloginspiration, writingK D Grace

I’ve just come off of two ‘dress-up’ events, or at least that’s what I call them because for me it’s always like playing dress-up the day of a reading or a book signing or a party, or any time I have to make a public appearance as KD or Grace. I ravage my drawers for my limited supply of sexy lingerie. Not that anyone would know the difference if I wore my granny panty reliables, I grumble as I truss myself up, but it’s the principle of the thing, isn’t it? By God, there should be lace and corsets and boots and frou frou it I’m gonna play the part, and there have to be items that lift and separate and mould and shape and constrict. Oh yes, they absolutely must constrict!

I try on every cleavage accentuating top in my closet with the sexy black jeans or the flowing skirts that are my standard uniform for those occasions that demand a little more, shall we say, sass. Should I show off the valley or showcase the peaks? That’s the question, and it’s never an easy decision. Occasionally I’m really brave and wear something brazen enough to show off both.

There might be a smattering of lace, a little costume jewelry, a curling iron to the hair for that glam look, or my jaundiced version thereof. Of course there’ll be eye-watering make-up (my own eyes doing said watering). I used to sell makeup. I know how to put on a little slap, but that was before I got obsessed with writing. Now, most of the time I just can’t be arsed. Makeup time is time that could be better spent as writing time. How unglamorous is that? But for a reading or a party or a public appearance as KD/Grace, there must be make-up, and usually at least some of it needs to sparkle.

And the final touch is what to do about my finicky feet? Shall I wear the boots with the girlie stamp of approval, or shall I risk several days in traction or a sprained ankle and wear my nosebleed heels. (Note, nosebleed to me means anything with an arch that I can slid two sheets of paper under. The higher the heel, the more girlie choice, right? And the naughtier, of course.

When I go to a reading, when I put my best girlie foot forward, I know how to look the part. And I love reading my sexy stories to equally sexy listeners. I’m in my element when I’m engaging with the audience, sharing the story, talking about the writing. But once the spotlight is off the story, what am I thinking?

‘This damn bra is gouging a trench in my ribs! If it pushes me up any higher, I’m going to suffocate in my own cleavage.’ That’s what I’m thinking! And though the panties I’m wearing underneath may be deliciously displaying my arse-cheeks (unbeknownst to everyone in the room, of course) in reality they make me feel like I need to either excavate or stand on my toes. And standing on my toes in certainly no problem, since I’m wobbling around on heels that feel like stilts, though that doesn’t seem to solve the panty problem. Oh, and the makeup. I never rub my eyes when I’m not wearing it, but the urge is damn near irresistible when I’m in full slap. Why is that? Is it the extra weight of mascara on my delicate, thin lashes? Is it a stray bit of powdery glitz from the eye shadow? Or maybe it’s just the body’s defenses taking over to rid itself of too much of a glam thing.

Before I started writing erotic romance, I had visions of scantily-clad women writing in their boudoirs in corsets and lace stockings and f**k-me shoes. If I had any illusion that I might eventually evolve into such a mythical creature, I WAS WRONG! It just ain’t happening! At least not with this slovenly writer. My dirty little secret: I write in a ratty track suit old enough and faded enough to easily be a charity shop reject. In the winter I write in fuzzy slippers that look like they might have acquired a case of the mange. In the summer, I let me feet breathe. God, how unsexy!

I’m working from the theory that sexy lingerie constricts the blood flow to my brain, inhibiting any truly sexy thought from penetrating the oxygen starved gray matter. I don’t write well in bondage. I need to be free. I need to be the dominantrix when it comes to the written page. My feet aren’t shaped like Barbie’s, pre-formed to fit into stilettos, though there are times when that would be beneficial. But no! My feet love flat surfaces.

And if you take a look at my hands – especially in the summer – no French manicure for me, nosiree! Guess I never got over the love of playing in the dirt from the days of my childhood. I grow vegetables, and vegetables like dirt, they need dirt. I could tell you amazing things about dirt! And here’s the rest of my dirty little secret. Doing dirty, messy, sloppy things, not the kind of things you’d do in a corset and stilettos, inspires me to write dirty, messy, chaotic, romantic fun stories. Being girlie doesn’t come naturally, digging in the garden, walking on the Downs, being outside in the mud and the dust does.

My dirty little secret is actually not much of a secret, and it’s common ground for a lot of my writer friends. We all laugh and joke that we can clean up okay and do the girlie, sexy thang just fine, even enjoy it. But when we go home, when we revert to our natural states, it’s jeans and trainers and tracksuits. It’s walking and digging and getting our hands dirty that inspires. Okay, some get their inspiration getting their hands dirty in the kitchen, baking and cooking and creating yummy meals, but I’ve never heard of one of them making a pavlova in full slap and a corset. Of course everyone has a different dirty little secret, so I could be wrong.

I guess ultimately the secret isn’t really a secret, and it isn’t really all that dirty. We writers all do whatever it takes to inspires us. The way we dress, the hobbies in which we indulge, the mindset from which we write is all about inspiration, all about finding the way through the gray matter to that perfect story. Still, it’s a part of the writer’s mystique to have a dirty little secret or two, isn’t it? But this is as close as you’ll get to mine, because if I told you any more, I’d have to kill you.

Two Sisters Walking

May 16, 2015Blogcanyon walk, inspiration, writingK D Grace

‘Look how all that water’s soaked in since the rain,’ I point out to my sister as we descend into the Dry Canyon that runs through her town in Central Oregon’s High Desert. Yesterday the rock bed of the shallow spillway looked like a small lake. Now the puddle is reduced to a birdbath for the scrub jays.

‘The rocks are porous,’ she says. ‘Volcanic. Even with a day and a night of heavy rain, it all soaks right in.’ Along the side of the paved path, the soil looks as dry and dusty as it always does, but looking out at the vegetation that’s usually varying shades of kaki and tan and burnt umber everything now has a shining patina of green, and the tiny purple flowers of the low bronze plants, which neither of us can name, carpet the desert floor with color.

A rock chuck gives a sharp high-pitched chirp from somewhere nearby and a scrub jay calls from the juniper tree above us. I catch a flash of iridescent blue in the branches and a flutter of wings. I love this canyon. It’s truly one of the treasures of Redmond Oregon, and some of my fondest memories and best ideas are associated with walks in this
canyon on my annual visit with my sister. The canyon, which was formed by ancient volcanoes, used to be the city dump a long time ago. Now it has a paved walking path the entire 3 ½ mileas well a dog park, a playground and several sets of steep steps into it from street level. It’s wide enough in spots that you can completely forget you’re surrounded
by a town on both sides at cliff-top level, and there’s now a bridge spanning the canyon in graceful concrete arches. I love that you see the occasional deer in the canyon and even occasionally there are mountain lion sightings. I love that the canyon feels like a wild place in the middle of a town of 27,000. But I also love that there are still a few places along the rocky edges where you can find the rusted-out corpses of cars and baling wire and other twisted metal heaps, now mangled beyond recognition, but certainly an inspiration to my imagination. I love that the canyon and the cliff tops that surround it are an incredible blend of wild high desert and human detritus from as long as people have lived on the cliffs above.

As we head into the canyon, a runner passes us, ears muffed in headphones. ‘That’s a tall drink of water,’ my sister says.

‘Where, I say,’ looking around for a large bottle of water, maybe strapped to the man’s hip.’

‘The guy. He’s tall.’ She nods in his direction. My sister has a way with words.

I laugh and watch him as he trots down the walking path, his miniscule running shorts flapping in the breeze. ‘You don’t even want to know where my thoughts go with that,’ I say.

She sniggers, ‘Probably not.’

I’ve already tried out my ideas for my recent mountain lion in the canyon story that I posted last week on my blog, so she’s not at all sure how her ‘tall drink of water’ may inspire me.

We walk in silence until we get to the bridge. From there on the canyon widens out until there are places where the trees and rocks hide the housing developments that line the cliffs above on both sides. We’re looking for a crow’s nest I spotted a couple of days ago when I was walking the canyon by myself. The sun was at the wrong angle for me to see inside the hodgepodge of dried sticks stowed into a crevice in the rocks, but the two attentive adults squawking and flapping on the ledge suggested there was a family. Today with this side of the canyon wall in shadow and us armed with a pair of binoculars, we can see that, indeed, there are at least five crow chicks, who look only days away from fledging. We watch in delight the caws and chirrups and furious exercising of young wings until one of the adults notices we might just be paying too much attention to the kiddos and hovers threateningly above us making loud threatening calls. We both decide, observing the poop-spattered side of the cliff below the nest, that it’s best to move on before mummy or daddy drops the bomb.

‘I’ve never seen a nest of crow-babies,’ I say, looking back over my shoulder as we continue on toward the stairs. The part of the canyon walk we do is the wilder end. It takes about two hours round trip and involves the ascent and decent of two sets of stairs – one about sixty steps, the other 109. Good for the old thigh muscles. We walk to the end and turn
back along the canyon wall on an unpaved path that undulates and weaves in and out of the rocks and trees. This is my favorite part. I could be in the woods for all I know, especially with the twitter and chirp of birds around us. Three California Quail cross in front of us with their top knots bouncing jauntily. A golden mantle ground squirrel scurries into the rocks. There’s just enough water in the little brook that passes beneath the trail to trickle softly.

For a long time we don’t talk. We just walk and take it all in. When we’re together, we usually talk a lot. We make up for lost time, but the canyon is a place where we’re silent as often as not because it’s such a great place to hear our thoughts, to listen for inspiration, to feel glad that we chose to walk instead of stay put in the house. I’m thinking about a story that the walk has inspired. I don’t know when it’ll happen, but when we do talk, we’re approaching the end of the walk, up behind the trailer parks, back out on the rim of the canyon. The place is sort of a no-man’s-land. I suspect that if expansion in Central Oregon continues, it may easily be turned into a housing development, but for now, it’s just there. There’s a huge mound of earth, maybe eight feet high, with a shovel thrust down in the top of it. I know for a fact that it’s a place where the kids from the trailer park play, but in my mind the shovel is there to bury a body. My sister looks at me askance as though she might be worried just a little bit about the twists and turns of my imagination as I take pictures of it and tell her my story idea.

‘There’s a dead skunk over here,’ she says, motioning me over. Her mind has it’s own strange twists and turns. ‘Stunk to high heaven last fall.’

‘It doesn’t smell so bad now,’ I say, looking at the desiccated heap of flattened skin and bones that I would have missed completely if she hadn’t pointed it out. ‘I want some pictures.’

She steps back and watch as I take pictures of the delicate skull and teeth, visible above the dusty remains of the pelt.

As we step back onto the dead-end lane that leads out of the canyon and back home, there’s an old pickup truck that’s been sitting there, my sister tells me, for months. The back of it’s loaded with a fascinating array of junk. ‘It looks like
someone was moving and then just deserted everything,’ I say.

‘It’s been ticketed by the police for being left, and then the ticket blew away and it’s still sitting here,’ my sister tells me.

I start taking pictures again. ‘Maybe the owner is buried beneath that mound of dirt back there,’ I say. ‘Maybe there’s foul play involved.’

‘That looks like a rodeo dummy in there,’ she says peering into the bed. And look, there’s a bottle of some kind of prescription drugs in that stir-fry pan.’

I look around to make sure no one is looking and start taking pictures while I tell her my story idea. ‘I think the guy will be running from someone and this is as far as he gets before he gets caught.’

‘But why would he have a rocking chair in the back and all that cooking stuff?’ She asks.

‘I don’t know, I’ll think of something. Maybe he was a rodeo clown, maybe he had gambling debts?’ I keep snapping pictures feeling slightly guilty for doing it, but not that guilty.

‘There was actually a pair of lacy women’s underwear laying behind the truck at one time. Bright pink.’ She remembers.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yup. That sounds like something that might interest you.’

‘The plot thickens.’ I say. Someone with a couple of dogs comes up out of the canyon behind us, so I, quick like a bunny, stuff my iPhone back in my pocket and we head on.

‘You want coffee?’ she says, as we stomp the dust off our feet on her sidewalk. ‘I want coffee.’

‘Me too.’ I follow her into the house, taking off my boots and pounding them over the rail of the porch to rid them of
dust.

‘I’m dying of thirst,’ she says.

‘Better get you a tall drink of water,’ I reply.

She gives me a dirty look and starts the coffee pot.

Putting the Fun Back in Writing

March 17, 2015Bloginspiration, psychology, The creative neurotic, the creative process, writing, writing and creativityK D Grace

If I’ve promised myself anything this year it’s that I’ll write for fun. It all started out that way, back when I was a kid and wrote my first stories. It was always fun – the writing. It was always magical to sneak away into my head and spend time with the people I made up. Things got more complicated when I began to engage with the world of publishing and, by the time I’d published my first novel, I always had an agenda. There was always at least one novel or story or novella that I was contracted to do ahead of the one I was working on at the time, most often, there were several.

Something about having a full dance card always made me feel like I was a proper writer, like I was legitimate. I never said no. Never! I felt like if I ever once turned anyone down, I’d jinx my success and no one would ever ask me to write for them again. Neurotic much???

Along with my ‘writing legitimacy’ PR, marketing and social media suddenly became essentials. I damn sure wasn’t going to let a book of mine languish after I’d gone to all the effort to write it. But how much is enough PR and marketing? How involved do I need to be in social media? Where and who and how often? And then there were readings and conferences and get-togethers with other writers and readers – all things I enjoyed, all things I tried never to miss. It’s exciting to be able to share my work with other people, and I love that part of promoting.

The thing is, at some point along the line the whole experience became wrapped up in my neuroses. It all became a task I felt I had to do, what I thought was expected of me. It all became wrapped up my fear of what might happen if I said ‘no’, if I chose to take a break. Somewhere along the line there became more and more rules and less and less room for me to play. I’m not blaming anyone. I think this is a struggle all writers have. But once I finished writing Interviewing Wade, I decided that from now on I’d be writing a whole lot more for fun, that I’d be brave enough to experiment again, to play with words and ideas and stories again and to see where those experiments lead me.

If the writing is no longer fun, then it’s not worth the doing. Writing the story has been the passion of my life for as long as I can remember, and I feel extremely lucky to have had some success. I’ve had so many reasons to celebrate because of this writing journey. But success, any success, is a very dangerous threat to fun. After I’ve popped the Champaign corks, after I’ve celebrated with my friends, after I’ve flashed my latest baby all over Facebook and Twitter, when I’m lying in bed in the dark, that’s when I begin to doubt myself, doubt my success, doubt that I’m capable of the next step required to move forward. That’s a real joy-stealer, and one I battle every day, as I’m sure many writers do.

The joy of writing, for me, is in seeing the story unfold and in knowing that I’m the conduit through which it unfolds. Frankly there are times when it feels a whole lot like magic. The fun is in watching the characters surprise me on the written page, the power – my power – comes from the play of it far more than from the work of it. This is a fact, and one I MUST remember at all cost.

Lisabet Sarai wrote a wonderful article for Erotic Readers and Writers Association a couple of months ago called The First Time. The article is about the power of the first novel, and how many first novels became iconic in the body of an authors’ work. Even though those first novels are not the best writing the author will ever produce, even though on the level of the story and the characters they may not be the best, somehow they speak to the readers on a visceral level in ways that later, better crafted novels by that same author just can’t seem to manage. I thought about that for a long time and, as I work to restore the joy and the play in writing, I’ve come up with a possible theory as to why so many of those first novels are so powerful. I think it just might be because those first novels are often writers playing, experimenting, discovering their powers and just trying to see what they’re capable of and what fun they can have with that creative energy. One of my very favourite authors of all time, a goddess in the craft, Diana Gabaldon, says she wrote her stunning first novel, Outlander, for practice never imagining that it would be published!

When I wrote The Initiation of Ms Holly, I wrote it totally as a romp, as a wild raucous joy ride that I absolutely played with and had fun with. At that point I had no intention of writing another erotic romance; I was experimenting. I was having fun. That was nine novels – under two pseudonyms — multiple novellas and a gazillion short stories ago. Though it’s been a fabulous ride, I’ve had to constantly remind myself that I’m a storyteller first and foremost, and I do it for the joy of it. I do it because in my heart, I know I’m not fit to do anything else.

It’s not that I no longer have fun with what I write. There are times when the pure joy of creating a world and characters and throwing them all together to see what will happen is just about as near an ecstatic experience as it’s possible to get on a keyboard. But if there is some truth in the fact that first novels are often so good because their authors are still playing with words, still revelling in the joy of the creative process, then it seems to me that as writers, anything we can do to get ourselves back to that first novel playtime sense of creativity, we most certainly need to do.

What does that mean? What does that even look like? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that it’ll involve taking some risks, letting go of the white knuckle grip of control I’ve had on my work and my time for the past few years and seeing what happens when I’m willing to just play with it, IF I can still be willing to just play with it.

Some of that play, some of that experimentation will be coming out on my blog in the future. I learned when I wrote the serial Demon Interrupted that there were lots of ways of using my blog that were far more interesting than saying ‘here’s this book. You should read it’ – whether it’s my book or someone else’s

But if I want to connect with my readers, if they really want to know who I am, then the best thing I can do is share my words, share my creative process, share my stories. Some of you may have already guessed that I’m playing around a bit with the ‘Morphine Dreams’ and the ‘Alonso Darlington’ writings. There’ll be more playing around, and there’ll be more stories, and more experimenting. There’ll still be some ‘read my stuff’ promos and some blitzes and some really fabulous guests. But I’m reserving the right to play – on my blog as well as in the stories I write. Because play is at the centre of my creativity. It’s the place where the next story waits to unfold itself, and without that sense of fun and play what’s the point?

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