Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A Friend Indeed

I talk a lot about my friends in blog posts, I know this and you all will just have to bear with me on it because I have no intentions of stopping now. When EBC came to me I was trying to come up with a few distinct characters that could be members of the main character’s coven. I wanted each of to have their own vernacular, phrasing, and quirks all the while having an extremely close, unflagging friendship. Basically I didn’t want cookie cutter side characters. So I looked at my own friends and three real life muses were born.

I went all out with it. Taking real inside jokes, actual things they have said during some of many random conversations, and our incredible foundation of friendship over these many, many years that is indeed magical. Because several of my characters are heavily based on real life people the dialogue came easier, the emotional responses were automatic, and the attachment was immediate. I was all in all very pleased with this experiment… because despite what some of them (you know who you are) may believe this is the first time they have shown up in any of my work. :-)



Now for the down side. It brings me back to yesterday’s post. When you use real life muses how do you hurt them or even worse kill one of them? Eeek!

On a different note–thank you all for the wonderful, kind, and supportive comments yesterday I love them. I managed to finish EBC which is a major relief for my poor brain to finally be able to think about something else. I was beginning to become an obsessed hermit these past few weeks. I am currently considering since I have droned on and on about EBC editing part of the first chapter and posting it on my blog to give everyone a taste of what it will be like.

*the pictures in this blog post were provided by my very favorite friend and photographer Kim. Check out some of her work here

6 comments:

C.G. Powell said...

It is great when you can use your friend as your muse and even better when they support you regardless of the out come of their character.

Elizabeth Sharp said...

I understand how using a real person as your muse really makes things flow. And how it's that much harder to be mean to them. I think part of my block right now is I know i"m leading up to heart break for Amelia...

Khloë Kamalis said...

Aww, your friend is really an awesome photographer. She captures so many words just with her pictures. I used a family member as my muse but then the book is based on fact written in fiction and it was really hard when it came to the emotional parts. (erm never mind the sex scenes O.O) lol. A good friend is a treasure indeed. :-)

Nichole Chase said...

I imagine that was rough! I can't wait to read the first chapter when you decide to put it up.

Anonymous said...

Thx for shedding light on the treatment of muses. Always a quandary. Basing one's characters on one's real life friends definitely gives that ring of authenticity, but what do you do with them when the novel demands their departure? UGH! Great blog. I'm a follower now. :)

V.K. Tremain said...

I can't wait to read your first chapter either! Whoo hoo! Using friends as muses is great, and I think enriches the characters for you. It gives them a personal depth, which can make it harder to do what you need to do for the story. But it makes for a great book! ;)

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