Inspiration isn’t always divine.
I observed an on-line conversation recently about the writer’s source of inspiration. People spoke seriously and sincerely about the nobility and purity of their calling. I didn’t contribute a thing. How could I? I don’t have a gracious lady wafting grand ideas into my subconscious mind. I have a bimbo in red stiletto heeled boots whispering smutty suggestions into my ear. Others have a muse...I have an inner tart.
My inner tart is prepared to use anything for inspiration...and I do mean anything, including the weirdness of some internet users. A little while ago I received an email from a fan. This is a big deal for me. Fans are golden and must be treated as such. I was a little confused when he (and yes, that was surprising in itself) said he loved how beautiful I was.
At first I thought he meant I was a beautiful person, which is an odd conclusion to come to from reading my books. A wicked person, a depraved woman, an irreverent trouble-maker:
that would be understandable - but beautiful? It turned out he thought the cover model on one of my books was me and he had fallen in love. Actually, that would be lust, because he sent me a detailed and somewhat icky description of exactly what he felt when he looked at the cover...and I mean felt quite literally. Felt, stroked, squeezed...you get the picture.
Before I pressed the block user button, I sat back and had a think. What kind of person is so inexperienced, so naive that they think the authors of books are the cover models?
Or is it that we are so used to people making up avatars and images on the net, that we now believe what we want to believe…and bugger reality? And if our interactions become more and more virtual, maybe that’s the way we’ll go.
Maybe one day virtual reality will be indistinguishable from for want of a better word— real reality. So here’s a question for you. If you could step inside a fictional world, and live it as
if it were real, what would you choose to do?
The answer to my own question—which book would I choose to live in? I’d never settle for one.
I’d start with Pride and Prejudice—which would immediately move to the crime fiction genre because Eliza Bennett has to go. I’m not having any competition for Mr Darcy.
I’d almost certainly have a stay in my own book, Submitting to Him because I write the kind of heroes I want. So if I get the chance to have them, no way would I turn it down. I want a hot, dominant, modern Greek god, thank you very much.
And my absolute favourite hero, the one I MUST have is Dominique, Vidal from Georgette Heyer’s Devil’s Cub.
So where are you going to dive in, and more importantly, with whom?
I must say that would have been an interesting piece of fan mail to get. Good point though, we're living our lives so much in the virtual now, it's easy to get confused between fiction and reality.
