We
were so excited to be given the chance to take part in the blog tour for Maria
V Snyder's new series starring one of our favourite kick-ass heroines Yelena
you just can't imagine! Shadow Study has bought all our favourite characters
back to us as well as introducing us to some amazing new ones and takes us back
into Yelena and Valek's world, somewhere I think many a reader has been
missing!
You can read the review for the first instalment of the Soul Finder
series here, In the meantime, we were also tasked with the challenge of coming
up with a challenge for Maria to get her teeth into for our tour post. One of
the things about the series that Maria writes is the depth of detail that she
incorporates into her stories and the fantastical worlds that she creates so
that got us thinking....How does she do it? What inspires her? So we came up
with the following:
What
five things (and that could mean places or songs or books or anything else that
comes to mind!) do you think have been most influential in the way that you
write or have fired up your imagination and inspired the stories that you
create?
And here is her answer!
Maria:
This is a unique and interesting question! Below are the five things as they
popped into my head:
1. My children. My son and daughter have
been a constant source of inspiration and ideas. I’ve written down all
the different things they noticed or said and have used a few of them in my
books. For example, my daughter at age 4 was very angry at my son and she
said, “I’m not going to talk to you for a million weeks.” Two seconds
later, she asks me how long a million weeks was so I calculated it out (approx.
19, 230.8 years). I used that number in my book Inside Out, it was the
world’s goal, something important was going to happen in a million weeks,
except they’d forgotten what. Another quick example is Yelena and her
brother Leif’s relationship in the Study Series (after they reconcile), that is
based directly on my kid’s relationship.
2. Dick Francis. I started reading Dick Francis’
murder mysteries when I was 14 years old and loved them. At the time, there
weren’t many books written in the first person point of view, and he ended each
chapter with a cliffhanger so it was impossible to go to bed at the end of a
chapter. His style influenced my own. When I started writing Poison
Study, I automatically used first person POV and I tried to keep the plot
moving and end chapters with a bit of suspense.
3. Travelling. I love to travel and will
go almost anywhere. A new place will fire up my imagination and I enjoy
learning about the history and myths of a place. One of my favorite
things to do is just wander around and take pictures. The places I’ve
gone have shown up in my stories. The Fifteen Realms from my Healer Series is
based on Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries. I started Touch of
Power soon after we went on a Baltic Sea cruise.
4. Blockbuster movies of the 80s. Just hearing the theme
music from Raiders of the Lost Ark can inspire me! They were so
different than the previous movies. Star Wars, ET, Ghostbusters,
and Back to the Future (to name a few) – they had action, adventure,
romance, and characters you really cared for. Today’s action movies are
all about special effects and explosions with characters that are
one-dimensional at best. And don’t get me started on the new Star Wars
movies – such potential utterly wasted (George, if you’re reading this, next
time ask me to write the screenplay – seriously, dude).
5. Unwritten, by Natasha Bedingfield. A lovely song and it’s
perfect for writers. I know she’s referring to a person being unwritten,
but to me, it’s the next book – the one I haven’t written yet. This line
in particular: “I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned.”
Every new novel I start is just like that and it can be scary. I
also like these lines, “Staring at the blank page before you. Open up the dirty
window. Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find.” It’s a
reminder to take a break from the computer, to live life and then go home and
write about it. That’s why I enjoy doing hands-on research so much.
It gets me out of the house and interacting with people. Plus I’m
learning something new and fun and sometimes scary. It’s all fodder for a
creative soul.
So there you have it!
Five things that inspire Maria to put pen to paper. Or fingertips to keyboard! We’re so grateful that they do!
A huge thank you to Maria for taking time out to answer our
question. We’ve loved getting extra
insight into the world behind Yelena’s world and to those that haven’t indulged
in any of the series that Maria has written so far beware. Once you start reading you may never escape
which is no bad thing!
