Author Names and Avatars

Since I’ve only met a handful of other authors in person, and since a lot of people don’t like to post a photo of themselves on-line, there are many authors whose faces I’ve never seen and whose names I've never heard mentioned aloud. So when I see their names somewhere on-line or in an email, I get an immediate image in my head of their on-line “profile” picture. It might be a favorite image of an embracing couple, one of their book covers, or some other symbol they use to represent their on-line identity.

I even had a dream once where I met up with a few authors I know on-line and one of them was this giant picture of her book cover. She was just sitting there at the table, having a drink, chatting with us as a two-dimensional image that included the book title and her name.

I heard somewhere that we can’t dream the face of a person we’ve never seen. That our subconscious cannot create a human face on the fly. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it does have me wondering who all those people in my dreams are and why I’m casting them in starring roles if I can’t recall who they are.

I also found out recently I’d been pronouncing one of my on-line friend’s name all wrong. For almost three years. I even had to correct my sweetie since she learned the name from me. She’d never actually seen this person’s name in print, just heard me saying it. How was she supposed to know I’d mangled it all up?

This got me thinking… I could be pronouncing people’s names wrong all over the place when I’m recommending their books to friends who’ve never read in the gay romance genre. Uh-oh. Sorry about that guys!

Am I the only one?



Award-winning author Sloan Parker writes passionate, dramatic stories about two men (or more) falling in love. Sloan enjoys writing in the fictional world because in fiction you can be anything, do anything...even fall in love for the first time over and over again. She lives in Ohio with her partner and their neurotic cats where her greatest moments in life are spent with her family, her friends, and her characters. You can learn more about Sloan and her writing at www.sloanparker.com.

Do You Dream in Color?

More importantly, do you dream in plots?

I usually do both.  I’ve used vivid dreams as a basis for a number of stories, whether it be resolutions, plot points, characters or even some vital scene in the middle.  

If I think the idea has any validity for a story, I’ll get up and write it down.  Sometimes it’s sexy, sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s scary.  Three of my books have been greatly affected by plot points I’ve had in dreams.  The blackest moment for Cooper in Blood Relations?  That was a dream, in all it’s gory detail.  Lucky me… uh…

Then again, sometimes you’re not quite sure why your subconscious comes up with things.

The other night, after a fairly innocuous night of watching White Collar and Covert Affairs, I went to sleep.  Where I dreamt about digging up dead bodies with both Sherlocks.  Yep, Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr.  Okay, so maybe my subconscious was being really, really good to me, despite the clear anachronism of having the two of them interact.  I also dreamt that I helped a werewolf find his mate, although that involved a rather unfortunate amount of peeing on the carpet. 

Then, the good times ended when I dreamt I inhaled a wood chip, woke up and spent an hour coughing before remaining awake for the rest of the night.  Not much on the way of story ideas, sadly, except perhaps some slash Sherlock on Sherlock fan fiction, I suppose.  Blog fodder isn’t too bad, either ; )

But as I’d said, I do often rely on dreams for ideas either to start stories or to get past a hurdle or add a different subplot.  Anyone else use dreams for inspiration?

KC Burn

You Are Already Naked

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about goals and accomplishments. My editor and I have just sent my upcoming release off to line edits. Yay!

It feels good to be getting closer to the completion of this project. Take Me Home was an unexpected story for me and definitely threw my goals off the original plan for 2011. I’m okay with that, though. I’m extremely proud of how this one turned out. It did, however, mean I had to put a hold on my other manuscript and thus put a longer gap between my releases than I would have liked.

For that reason, and the many other roadblocks that we writers face, it can be easy to get discouraged in this business and give into the fear that comes with putting your creativity out into the world.

The quote below started making the rounds again after the recent passing of Steve Jobs. I think it’s a great quote for anyone who has a dream of accomplishing something but are afraid to try, to put themselves out there where failure is a real possibility, especially public failure. As an author, I can relate to that fear. Most writers live with it on a continual basis.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

- Steve Jobs in a commencement address at Stanford in 2005

Fear (of failure and success) can be a part of what makes it difficult to push forward with any goal. One way to look at it is along the lines of what Steve Job was saying: in the end what do you really have to lose by trying? Another way to look at it is that most accomplishments require a series of tasks. Break down a goal into tasks and it becomes less frightening and more manageable.

Very few writers can create a publishable first draft. And those who do often edit and revise as they write that draft. They have a process that involves re-reading their work as they write, either chapter by chapter or at the beginning of a writing session or whenever they get stuck and need to go back over what they’ve written. It varies for everyone. Even with creative endeavors there are steps that one can take, a process that works for the individual writer or painter or musician or whatever, and moving forward with those steps is the way the end result is achieved.

That’s how many goals are accomplished, how dreams are discovered. Through creativity, diligence, and perseverance.

Just think about where Steve Jobs (and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak) started with Apple and how far personal computers advanced during his lifetime. Sure, he was only one part of that achievement, but the advancement of the technology does illustrate how far a dream can go.

FROM THIS...

1976 - Apple I
Photo Credit: Flickr/Ed Uthman


TO THIS...

2010 - iPad
Photo Credit: Apple

So, for all of you out there with a dream to achieve a specific goal—whether it’s writing or mountain climbing or losing weight or anything else—I hope you see that you are already naked and decide to give it a try.

“To reach a port, we must sail—Sail, not tie at anchor—Sail, not drift.”
- Franklin Roosevelt

Sloan Parker
www.sloanparker.com

Dreaming of Puppets

Inspiration. Sometimes it’s an armadillo attack. Sometimes it’s more mundane. (This is me, trying to bang out a writing related post -- just don’t expect it to be all erudite and filled with proper information and stuff… I’ll leave that to some of my fellow LI authors.)

Anyhoo… For those of you who don’t know me, I have two books out with Loose Id (Wolfsbane & Blood Relations in the MIA Case Files series). In these books, I’ve got entities called Umbrae which infect humans, creating mythological or folklore monsters. And MIA is the secret agency that combats them. Simple enough, right? But I thought I’d tell you a bit about my inspiration for them.

Dreams spawn a hell of a lot of my story ideas. Most of the dreams I remember involve blood and death, serial killers, someone trying to kill me, or a combination thereof. Fabulous material, although I suspect my brain is a nasty pit stop on the way to crazy town.

One night, though, I had a particularly vivid dream -- secret agents investigating paranormal phenomenon, angst-y romantic conflict between gruff Carmichael and sweet Adam, and even the stoic senior agent, Oliver, who is the hero of the manuscript I’m working on now. However, the paranormal being they were investigating? Uh… a fifty foot Oscar the Grouch-type monster. Kinda destroyed the whole ’secret’ thing, and didn’t do much for the scary-ness, although it was terribly impressive when he/it stomped all over the local football stadium.

It was a great start, but for a viable villain, I needed to start ’what-if’ing. And, OMG, actually plotting! Many a drive to work was spent toying with options. Probably I shouldn’t admit that I’d written two thirds of the first draft of Wolfsbane (which was sans title for a loooong time) before I hit on the Umbrae. The inspiration for Blood Relations was a little more simple, especially since I‘d already come up with the Umbrae, although it was also a dream. Unfortunately, if I tell you, it gives away the climax. Suffice it to say, Cooper’s black moment is pretty darn close to the way I dreamt it.

Some might say I’m in need of therapy and/or medication. I say I have a head full of creatively helpful nonsense. To-may-to, to-mah-to. Regardless, at times when I’m slated to write ten blog posts over the next month… inspiration is a handy-dandy topic.

Ummm… blog post starts out okay… but scrambles a bit looking for a solid finish…

Anyone got any good places they’ve found inspiration?

KC Burn