What inspires you?

This is probably the question I get asked most as an author: what inspires you to write? The answer isn't complicated and one word sums it up: beauty. I am inspired by beauty. The tricky bit is that I find many things beautiful (and not just objects, but actions and thoughts), and sometimes they are things that other people might not find beautiful...

photo: afternoon beach © Dianna Hardy, 2014

• nature - almost any landscape or scenery
• historical buildings
• daunting, modern skyscrapers
• innovative design - new gadgets for practical things really press my beauty button
• colours and paints - in fact, I used to paint and draw quite a lot. Watercolours, pastels and graphite pencils were my favourite mediums. I also love make-up palettes. Looking at a beautifully laid out, pigmented, shimmery palette fills me with nice feelings, even though I only wear make-up less than half of the week, if that
• body art - tattoos, especially, are beautiful!
• the colours of nature - they simply can't be replicated or reproduced by man
• people - looking at an attractive man or woman (what I consider attractive) is always pleasurable - yes, man OR woman. Eyes capture me more than anything else, followed by how they wear a smile, followed by how they carry themselves as a person. And yes, I firmly believe beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is unequivocal. Everything we see is a perception
• people's thoughts - words, quotes, and the thoughts they keep hidden; the ones they do not say but that you can see between their words
• open-minded intelligence, coupled with sensitivity
• circles - I love circles, balls, spheres, domes
• the earth and the moon - especially when you can see the shadow of the moon making it spherical
• shadows - they are both mysterious and beautiful
• the way children play and act, so filled to the brim with unsuppressed life - I wish we would never lose this as we grow up. Having said that, I think I was an "old" child, and got younger as I got older
• raw emotion - this is beautiful to watch unfold when it is led by pure intention, whether it's anger, love, or fear
• conflict - this can be beautiful for the above reason, but it is also painful to witness. However, I am one of those people who can find beauty in pain and vulnerability. This doesn't mean I wish it in others, just that I see the beauty in it
• passion - for the same reasons as 'raw emotion'. Too few people are brave enough to be passionate about life, and to follow their passions
• travel, and others' stories of travel - I am a wanderluster at heart and always will be
• animals - every single one. (Although I'm less partial to furry caterpillars - I'll take spiders over furry caterpillars!)
• can I say nature again? I so love nature - everything we need can found in it. It provides for us and nourishes us, and that is beautiful in every respect

I find beauty in all the above, and more than can be listed, and writing is the tool I use to express that beauty. I also love trying to capture it in photographs - a hobby I shall be spending a little more time doing this year if I can.

What inspires you? Let us know!

Dianna xxx

Lava lamps and sexy scenes...

Plot-sex. I've spent the last two nights trying to write a plot-sex scene. For those of you that don't know what that is (and it is entirely possible that I've just made up the term), it's when an author writes a sex / love scene that has to not only be sexy and erotic, but has to further the plot in some way or another. Important plot points are told through the sex. Never easy. Although damn satisfying once you've succeeded.

So, last night, I was stuck. I'm almost at the end of this scene. My two characters are doing the deed (and quite well, actually - kudos to me), but I'm still not happy with how I've inserted the plot elements; these little hints that will unfold into actual story lines later on. Really, there's only so much you can put between grunts and groans, and it's got to be inserted (pardon the pun) in such a way that it doesn't detract from the eroticism, but still calls attention to the reader.

So I found myself drifting off as I stared at my lava lamp (that is not a metaphor; I was actually staring at a lava lamp), and after about fifteen minutes of drifting, it suddenly hit me: Karl (character from book one, The Witching Pen) - his mother is murdered with a lava lamp (in the living room, if you must know - it could be the start of a whole new Cluedo concept). I didn't even think about it when I wrote that; I just wrote it. My fingers did that thing where they develop a life of their own and just write the scene.

And that's what I needed to find - that's what I needed to do again, even if it meant the sex scene became all chaotic and they ended up having weird bunny sex, or stilted, interrupted sex, or whatever else sex there is - just write the damn scene, get what you want in there, then tidy it up later.

Well, I'm pleased to say that the scene is now all but finished. There's a tiny amount of tidying up still to do, but part of that involves creating a whole new language, so that may be another strange blog post you will all be subjected to at some point ;)

The point of this post: pay attention to the mundane things around you, they are often trying to tell you something ... and lava lamps are cool.