I first met Stacia when she was promoting her non-fiction work, “Nine Months In- Nine Months Out.” You can click HERE to read the long list of her credentials. Or, you can read on and allow her to inspire you….
Writers and artists draw from many sources of inspiration. Movies. Other Books. A piece of artwork. Memories. People passing by. Things happening in nature or history and even dreams. Sometimes, we even just pick a random set of words to try and spark an idea. There’s even a box available for writers called “The Storymatic.” It’s supposed to be great not only for authors, but teachers, artists, road trips, improv and game nights. You simply pick one red card and one gold card. For example, I just pulled “wrestler” and “fever,” which should make for an interesting scene…(if you want to run with it, by all means, go for it!)
Where do you find inspiration?
As much fun as that can be, I realized a number of years ago that I tend to daydream my stories into being. At least the first scene or two. I can spend hours perfecting and tweaking a single opening scene in my head before ever putting it on the page. And, every so often, I layer in pieces from snippets of conversations going on around me, a hint, a suggestion, the way someone moves or says something.
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The Goddess Chronicles came about from a daydream idea that randomly popped up during an RWA conference. I’d started out with Glacial, the Goddess of Water, in a swirl of snow and ice, but somehow Phyxe, Goddess of Fire took over and demanded to be first. Imagine that, Phyxe being demanding. She’s not really known for her patience.
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Ichi, with Ryan and Shia, evolved from someone mentioning they’d love to read a story about a female samurai (which also sent me off reading about samurai and ninjas). And, now that I think about it, both series came from the same person! Thus, the samurai sisters were born and have taken over our writing household.
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And now, I have a new contemporary that started when scenes began appearing in my dreams one night.
Wolf Maze, the new contemporary, is one of those brilliant dream sequences from the depths of my subconscious that has blossomed into a story. It’s both a blessing and a curse. What was truly awe inspiring? I dreamed it in sequence. I’ve never had that happen before. And now, Jax and Vincent are chomping at the bit (pun intended) for me to get started, but I have Goddesses demanding I finish their storyline first.
For other stories, I’ve had a glimmer of an idea here or there that came from the dream realm, but never a full story. Glacial has stolen a few of those dreams for her story. Phyxe had one show up in hers as well. I should start a contest to see who can figure out which scenes are the dream ones!
When other authors tell me, they only had the one story in them, I’m constantly amazed. I have so many voices vying for attention that sometimes it can be challenging to sit down and focus on just the few in the series I need to be working on.
My imagination keeps it moving along. If you’re an author or artist (any type of creative), where’s the most creative places one of your ideas or stories came from?
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Stacia D. Kelly, Ph.D., is the author of the fiction works, “Phyxe: Goddess of Fire”, “Ichi”, and the upcoming “Gaian.” Her non-fiction work includes “Reduce You”, “Muse”, and “Nine Months In, Nine Months Out.” Read more atwww.staciakelly.com.
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