Belle resides somewhere north of Houston, Texas in a small inconsequential town with the smallest most inconsequential name. There, in the shady reaches of the pines, elms, and oaks, she daydreams of adventures and secrets that she weaves throughout her stories.
As a student of literature, Belle is earning her degree in English at the University of Houston. She hopes to teach literature at the college level some day.
LINKS:
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12144652-cicada
Author Blog: http://bellewhittington.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BelleWhittington.Author
Twitter: @AuthorofCicada
GUEST POST:
Creating Chemistry in
My Writing
Belle Whittington
I’ve mulled this question over and
over in my mind, fishing around in my brain for an answer complex and
interesting enough to keep my lovely readers interested without boring them to
tears! I think I know where to start…
The summer
during which Cicada was born into my
mind is still as fresh in my memory as if it were yesterday. I’d been feeling the itch to write
something…it was an insatiable urge that could not be squelched by any other
means than by opening my mind to the story that was literally clawing its way
out of my imagination. And so I
did. I opened the doors of my mind, and
everything came flooding out at once.
It was a
hot, sunny, summer day in early June that I turned down the long, winding road
that runs along side the ranch that inspired the setting for the ranch in Cicada.
To be honest, I had the radio cranked up, the windows down, and I was
listening to the soundtrack for Twilight. At the precise moment I drove by the spooky
forest that inspired the haunted forest in Cicada,
the song Full Moon by The Black
Ghosts came on the radio. It was like
that song was the key I needed to open the door to my imagination and let the
story unfold. It was brilliant! Like the most powerful kind of magic!
By the time
I got home, I had the whole Preface ready to put down in words. And I fell in love with the Preface as soon
as I read it for the first time. After
that, the characters slipped through that open door one-by-one and introduced
themselves to me as if they were real people.
It really was amazing!
After I
allowed the characters to wander around in my imagination for a while so that I
could get to know them, I began to realize that they’d known each other before
I’d met them! It was like watching a
movie unfold in my mind! I know what you
are thinking … it sounds like I’m a lunatic.
And maybe I am, but that’s a different story all together. Today, we are discussing how I create
chemistry in my writing. Ahem. Back to the story…
So after I
got to know them, I set them loose on the town of Willis and followed them around. The first place they headed for was … can you
guess? Anyone? Awww… come on, this is an easy one! Yes!
They headed for the Sonic! And it
was all downhill from there!
You are
probably wondering why I went through all of that to get to this part. But I felt like I needed to give a little
back story about how I imagine and write before I could address the question of
how I create chemistry in my writing.
What is the answer?
I pop a
terrific CD into my car stereo or hop over to YouTube and listen to my
inspiration lists. All the characters
need is some good mood music and a little time enacting what they plan to do
next. They do the interactions. Sometimes they set things or fire, or battle
extraterrestrials. Sometimes they hop on
a horse and ride off across the verdant green pasture at the ranch. All I do is observe and record.
You see,
they arrived in my dimension already knowing each other … already friends, love
interests, family members. They came
complete with their own back stories, likes, dislikes, names. I didn’t really have to do any thinking or
planning to create the chemistry between them, because it was already there!
And, just
between you and me, there are nights … especially those dark nights when the
moon doesn’t rise … when I’m up late writing on the sequels to Cicada … that I begin to wonder if my
characters were thought up by me or if I am really a figment of their
imaginations and they are the ones who are writing a story with me as a
character. If that’s the case, they sure
are writing a boring book!
Summertime for Blair Reynolds and her friends had always been carefree and fun... until the summer they happened upon something that was not human. As they band together in a fight for their lives, Blair's true love becomes something more than human. Something unnatural. And their survival depends entirely upon their ability to keep a secret.
Ebook Giveaway: There are 12 ebooks to be given away on the tour.
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The author is giving away an electronic firefly in a jar in honor of the sequel to CICADA called FIREFLY. You can see a video of the jar here. US only.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
CICADA Tour Schedule
Click here to see the full participant list...
