Joely Sue Burkhart

1. Other really good or unique books.  No plagerism–don’t get me wrong–but inspiration.  Wow, I never thought of what it would be like for vampires and shapeshifters to exist in modern day St. Louis with a main character known as The Executioner.  (Laurell K. Hamilton)  This includes myths and fairy tales.  I LOVE mythology of all kinds.

2. Other really bad books.  You know, the “I can’t believe this got published!  I can write waaaaay better than that!”

3. Really good movies.  Just watching Jane Eyre gives me goose bumps and I want to whip out a historical RIGHT NOW.

4. Really bad movies.  Underworld.  I created vamps and shifters the “right” way (in my not so humble opinion!) in Beautiful Death as a result.

5. Music.  Certain lyrics, or the music itself.  Every story I write ends up with a theme song.  Sometimes the song comes first.

6. Overheard imaginary conversation.  Sounds weird, but I get snippets of dialogue in my head and they will not go away.  I don’t know who’s speaking, and the voices aren’t speaking to me (or I’d be really worried about my sanity).

7. Overheard real conversation, whether TV or at a restaurant, etc.  Once I was watching Judge Judy and this older lady was mad at a landscaper because her yard was “nothing but weeds and crabgrass.”  That inspired a story idea where all the characters had the personality of plants, in particular crab grass, thistles, stink weed.    It would have been really fun, but it’s still in my “ideas” folder in my brain.

8. Dreams.  I dreamed the My Beloved world (Survive My Fire, Blood Rose) for YEARS before I ever tried to write it down.  I would prime a scene in my mind, fall asleep, and dream it.  Lovely.  Now with three monsters, I rarely get enough sleep and those “dreaming” sessions are long gone.

9. Pictures.  There’s a certain picture I stumbled across that IS Gregar (picture in the sidebar yowsa!) the Shadowed Blood, of the My Beloved world.  I see that picture and I’m so deep into his mind that I wonder if I’ll ever come out. 

10. Submission calls.  My overachieving perfectionist brain sees an “assignment” and gallops ahead at full speed!

11. News.  Remember the horrible pictures of people stranded in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina?  That still haunts me, touching the people locked out of New Olympia in Beautiful Death as well as a gothic I want to write next month.

12. The monsters.  Sometimes it’s just their unique, crazy, sweet personalities, especially MM.  She is a mix of contradictions.  One minute fearless; the next afraid.  I really try to blend complexities into my characters as a result.

13. Church.  Okay, you might think this is a stretch.  But especially in the My Beloved world, one of the underlying themes is that everything happens according to the gods’ will, even the bad stuff.  That horrible events can be used for good; that even the worst creature of Shadow can be redeemed.  And of course, the blood of salvation.  I think a lot of my blood/sacrifice themes can be traced back to my background as a Christian.