Wednesday with the Writers: Classic Inspiration for Scenes by Jennifer Rae Gravely

Hi guys!

It is Wednesday, so that means it's time with some of our writers. Jennifer Rae Gravely is here to talk about getting inspiration for your scenes from the classics. Not plaugerize of course... but get inspiration. We get inspiration from everything... why not the classics?

What is your favorite ways to get inspiration for your stories?

~Kelly

~*~*~*~

Here's Jennifer...

I love the classic poets and find that I use their works as inspiration for scenes in my stories. In Knight of the Dead I favored the romantic poet William Wordsworth and in Set to Love used his friend and fellow author of the Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Since this is National Poetry Month, I thought I’d share with everyone. Leave me a comment and tell me your favorite poet or poem.

From Knight of the Dead

 

After putting Rose to bed, Mark led Persephone to the porch swing on the back deck. Poetry raced through his mind at the perfection of the moment. They sat close, staring at the diamonds in the cloudless night sky with silence a friend. The voice of the English poet William Wordsworth as he gazed at nature’s beauty mimicked the peace in Mark’s soul with Persephone beside him. The Japanese red maple tree stretched dark shadows across the corner near the stairs, to “connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky.” Every night like this made sense, but the words to make it so still stuck in his throat.

 

When she touched his knee, a bolt of energy jolted him into action. He leaned in and kissed her. Electricity sizzled in the air.

 

“Say something sweet to me,” she whispered, pulling back slightly. She wore a thin, cream-colored sweater and black corduroys. The moonlight made her creamy complexion glow and her hair flame.

 

“Ice cream, cake, chocolate, cookies, gummy bears...” He grinned in anticipation of her smile at his clever word play.

 

She giggled, her voice like a song. “Not what I had in mind.”

 

“I’ll try again.” Mark inhaled her beauty. “Was your daddy a thief?” She shrugged, leaning away from him. “Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.”

 

Persephone didn’t laugh, and her body tensed. Mark ran his hand through his hair. “Most girls fall for that one.” He searched her eyes for the answer to her sudden coldness. “But you’re not like most girls, are you?”

 

As she slowly shook her head, her hair brushed her shoulders. “I changed my mind.” She put her finger over her lips. “No more talking.”

 

Pulling her hand away, he brought it to his mouth. She shivered as his lips traced her arm, her shoulder, her neck.

 

He murmured, “’A sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.’” His lips brushed hers.

 

“Oh, my!” She sighed. “That’s what I wanted.”

 

He slid his arms around the small of her back, pressing her shaking body against his. “Anything, and it’s yours.”

 

“More of these, please.” She pressed her lips against his. Her kisses haunted him like a passion.

 

The night was perfect.

 

From Set to Love

Guests lingered along the lantern lit pathways that stretched toward the orchards on the left and the forest of hardwood trees on the right. His heart swelled with poetry, reminding him of the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem “The Eolian Harp,” ‘O! the one Life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul…’ The path opened before them, displaying a world of Elfin delight beyond the twilight of the late summer’s eve. A formally attired band played, bookended by marble statues of the Greek twins Apollo and Artemis. Rosebushes dotted the perimeter of the pebbled paths, filling the air with the sweet scent of the season. The wooden platform ahead was empty, although couples sat at the small tables surrounding the sixteen by twenty-four foot dance floor.

 

“I’m not shy.” Grabbing his hand, she practically sprinted to the stage.

 

Blake followed her lead. She moved as gracefully as a nymph, and he marveled at his good fortune. The moon smiled down on them, and the stars winked, creating, ‘A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere—’

You can get your copy at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Astraea Press or wherever ebooks are sold.













Pick up your copy today from: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Astraea Press or wherever ebooks are sold.


 

Aspire to Inspire

Written by Kay Springsteen

“When a spunky Wall Street secretary's business idea is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to steal it back by pretending she is her boss.” Are you old enough to remember this movie? It’s Working Girl from 1988, starring Harrison Ford as Jack Trainer, Sigourney Weaver as Katharine Parker, and Melanie Griffith as Tess McGill.

For those who don’t recall or who may never have seen it (you’re missing out!), Tess is a secretary trying to make it in a man’s world. Her latest boss steals an idea of hers and Tess decides to take action. In the end, she proves the idea was originally hers by showing how she came up with it.

<><><>

Jack: Hear the lady out, sir. There's another elevator.

Trask: Fine.

Jack (to Tess): You're on.

Tess (sets down her box of belongings and pulls out a file, rifles through it and pulls out newspaper clippings): Okay. See, this is Forbes. It's just your basic article about how you were looking to expand into broadcasting, right? Okay now, the same day, I'll never forget this. I'm reading page six of the Post, and there's this item on Bobby Stein, the radio talk show guy who does all those gross jokes about Ethiopia and the Betty Ford Center. Well, anyway, he's hosting this charity auction that night...real blue bloods, and won't that be funny? Now turn the page to Suzy, who does the society stuff, and there's this picture of your daughter.

Trask (looking at the clippings and nodding): Ah.

Tess: See, nice picture. And she's helping to organize the charity ball. So I started to think, "Trask, radio...Trask, radio." And then I hooked up with Jack, and he came on board with Metro, and...and so now here we are. (1)

<><><>

The way stories come to me is perhaps a bit unusual. I don’t get snatches of the story or a scene here and there that I can build on and see where it leads. When inspiration hits, it is most often sudden and the skeleton of an entire story just pops into my head, leaving me with only the need to flesh out the characters and develop the muscle of the story. But here’s where it actually gets tricky. The inspiration will hit me much the same way it hit Tess McGill in Working Girl. Pieces of a puzzle begin to connect themselves in my brain. Perhaps a song, or a story in the news will plug itself in, and then if I just sit still, the rest of the pieces fall into place from start to finish. Songs ease their way into my consciousness, memories of events or people I took note of while out in public arrange themselves into the character lineup. Pictures and scenes splash across my mind and build upon one another.

For example, in Lifeline Echoes, it was a song as I listened to my MP3 player set on random one night after work. Garth Brooks voice came on singing “When You Come Back to Me Again,” which is the theme from the movie Frequency. For whatever reason, the words just started forming pictures in my mind, but NOT the pictures from the movie. All new scenes about people who never meet in person…and the concept of a voice lifeline and falling in love knowing it can never be a fulfilled love was born. I mulled the story over for perhaps two or three days, and those bits and pieces floated upward from the filing cabinet of my mind and I knew I was going to tell an emotional tale of love and loss and love again. As I wrote the story, I knew exactly where it was heading from beginning to end and how it was going to get there. All that was left to do was add the bells and whistles.

Other stories had similar beginnings. With Heartsight, it was the story of a blind soldier in the news. With Operation: Christmas Hearts, my daughter (a U.S. Marine wife) mentioned how hard families find being apart during holidays. Heartsent came about when my daughter-in-law mentioned a story about surrogate mothers.

At the end of the day, I have far more completed stories in my head than I can ever hope to get onto my computer. Why? Because the skeleton of the story is not the complete story and it still takes time to gather my thoughts enough to form understandable and cohesive sentences in a logical order that makes sense to those who will read it. I joke often that I am in search of a direct connection between brain and computer so when inspiration hits I can simply think the story and it will type itself. Until then…I’d better get back to it and let some of these clamoring people out.

 

 
You can find Kay's books at Astraea Press, Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

ENDNOTES

(1) From Working Girl, 1988, 20th Century Fox