Three Places I Find Inspiration

 Happy New Year!

On this New Year's Eve day, I'm busy crunching year-end financials in preparation to go to quarterly tax-reporting. Author finances, however, are not the topic of the week at the SFF Seven. Instead we're discussing a much happier topic: sources of inspiration.

The two are somewhat tied together for me as I've spent the last two weeks refilling my creative well. I finished my revision of ONEIRA (final title to come) on December 15 and sent it off to my editor. Since then, I've taken a break from writing work - very unusual for me. The time has been consumed largely by Christmas prep, travel, visiting family, and doing business like the above crunching of year-end financials. Looking at this, I've realized that I've been relying on passive well-refilling: hoping that if I simply leave the creative well alone, that the vast water table of the universe will seep in and top that puppy off for me. 

And, to some extent, that's true.

However, I'm realizing I haven't been following my new tenet of aggressively refilling the well. That would mean finding ways to actively pour juice into that well. And that's where inspiration comes in. What are my top three?

Media

I'm putting a lot under this heading, much like my sibling-under-the-skin, Murderbot. One thing I have been doing is a full re-read of this excellent series by Martha Wells. Reading books - particularly brilliantly written ones by authors I admire - is a great source of inspiration for me. I also include listening to music under this heading. While road-tripping, I put my music library on All Songs Shuffle, which unearths interesting stuff I haven't listened to in ages. A Cat Stevens song - The Wind - turned up, so now I'm diving into a full Cat Stevens song shuffle. What an amazing songwriter, to communicate so much in so few words. Finally, I love watching movies for inspiration. I got a great idea just the other night from a movie and now I'm sizzling to write this series. Though it will have to wait, the sparkle of that excitement adds to my overall feeling of creative flow.

Nature

I'm fortunate to live in a beautiful place. My desk overlooks a spectacular view and my morning walk with the dog is replete with huge skies, distant mountains, and beauty of all kinds. I say I'm lucky to have this - and I am! - but I also sought out this place, because being outside in a beautiful place is super important to me. Just living here refills my well.

Silence

Longtime readers probably know that I'm an advocate of silence for creative flow. By this I don't necessarily mean the absence of ambient sound, though it sometimes means that for me. I'm talking primarily about the silence of the mind, the emptiness that allows creativity to flow in, that enables us to hear the voices scintillating through the veil, telling us their stories. Taking time off from the "noisier" parts of my life has been invaluable for that. 

Huh... Turns out I've been doing better at aggressively refilling the well than I thought!

Best wishes for an inspiring 2024 for us all!

Variation on a Holiday Theme

Movies. For the longest time, I took great joy in slipping away to the theater to watch whatever happened to be screening. We lived on military bases, which were only so big. My sister and I learned early the math of leaving the house and walking to the single screen theater for a matinee. Most of the movies are dusty and forgotten, now. Mostly because they deserved to be. A few still gleam in imagination. Unfortunately, all of this was before the migraine disorder dissected my love affair with the thrill of a darkened movie theater. This is the long way of telling you I don't have any holiday-ish movies for you. Screens are problematic. Whether it's the flicker or refresh rates of modern panel TVs, we'll never know. 

TV and movies went away shortly after I graduated from college. I do still go to movie theaters - well. I *did* before all of this plague nonsense. But I only go after someone I trust rates a movie good enough for a migraine. Far too few movies rise to that level. The English Patient did. Pirates of the Caribbean, too. Iron Man as well. Oh. And Wonder Woman, though I had a few plot issues with it and that is another rant entirely. What it means is that you can plainly see I'm not at all movie-literate at this point.

I realize no one asked, but it's not the holidays until Buddy Hackett freezes solid beneath the streets of New York City and has Bill Murray yelling at his corpse. Scrooged. It's Scrooged I love.

So if you want to talk about holiday adjacent music, instead, I might have some of that, but that's because I'm pagan and my definition of holiday-ish tunes may be unacceptably odd to anyone else. Naturally, Loreena McKennitt tops the list. She has two holiday themed albums, but one of them is specifically Christmas and the other is more solstice oriented and it is that one that has my affection. Nox Arcana has a creeptastic holiday-inspired album. It's not going to be chirpy, whistle-tone singers belting tunes, that's for certain. There's something about the end of the year that seems to inspire desperation in far too many people. It's as if the arbitrary time marker of 'end of the year' turns deadlines everyone had 12 months to accomplish into monsters hungry for flesh and blood. Yes. I'm thinking of my day job. And maybe I'm busy tech writing what ought to have been tech written six months ago, but who's counting? Decorating and cooking - while fun - can pile stress even higher. So I look for music that sets me to dreaming of sparkling snow drifting through the evergreens, and the stag spirits breathing steam into the frigid night. (Lest you think I miss cold northern winters, I don't. I miss the *idea* of them, but actual snow? No. Thank you. I'll deck the halls with tropical plants and a couple of reptiles, thanks. I like not having to wear socks.)

Holidays are about dreams and memories and traditions. Movies can't be a big part of my life anymore. So I rely on music to tell me the stories I miss out on otherwise.

Favorite Holiday-Adjacent Movie: I am Dragon

 Christmas (or similar holiday) adjacent movie that I love?

I Am Dragon

It's a charming YA Beauty and the Beast-ish Russian flick that has amazing costumes. It's not a blood, guts, and gore movie. Sure, there are villainous moments, but we're talking villain-lite. The scariest parts are in the trailer, so safe to use that as a guide for whether it's suitable for your kidlets.

Jeffe's Top Five Christmas-Adjacent Movies

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our favorite Christmas-adjacent (or other holiday-adjacent) movies. Now, I'm a Christmas-loving gal, so if you don't celebrate or don't care, feel free to skip. This will not be on the final.

All right! Now, if you are like me and love to add Christmas movies to the general celebrating, but maybe get tired of the movies that focus SOLELY on Christmas - not that there's anything wrong with those! - then you might like some of these Christmas-adjacent movies. They're not Christmas movies in any real sense, but they include Christmas in awesome ways.

Also, I suggested this topic because I'm always looking for more Christmas-adjacent movies. (NOT Die Hard, people.) So, I'm looking forward to what my bordello-mates suggest - and please tell me yours!

In reverse order, my Top Five Christmas-adjacent movies.

#5    Mean Girls

What? I *told* you these aren't actual Christmas movies! Mean Girls is almost an honorable mention, but I have to include it because of the classic sexy-Santa-in-red-latex dance. Also, this is a brilliant movie that deserves a rewatch anyway.

#4    You've Got Mail

The Christmas scenes in this movie capture all the wonderful nostalgia of the season. The original movie, The Shop Around the Corner, had a stronger Christmas focus and is totally worth watching, too.

#3    Iron Man 3

Tony shopping for a gift for Pepper? Trying out a new suit to the tune of Jingle Bells? Yes, please! Also the Christmas setting provides glittering contrast to the story. 

#2    The Long Kiss Goodnight

Seems like not many people saw - or appreciated - this one, but I love Geena Davis as a kickass spy who goes from sweet, amnesiac wife and mom to lethal superagent. All at Christmas time. Plus Samuel L. Jackson. More ironic Christmas cheer for the win!

#1    Bed of Roses

Sometimes I feel like the only person who saw and LOVED this movie. I saw it in the theater twice, and have had it on VHS since then. It's one of my favorite romances, and the juxtaposition of the emotional pressure of Christmas and family make the love affair even more poignant. Plus, contains the line from Pamela (Segall) Adlon, "I'm a Jewish Elf." 

Now, hit me with suggestions! What Christmas-adjacent movies should I be watching???

My Consumption: Entertainment not TB

BROM: Lost Gods (a novel with illustrations)

Man, I love some of the topics my fellow bloggers choose.

"Books vs Comics vs Movies vs Games"

Yes, please. I'll take a bushel from column A and a tower from column B and...

It should be no surprise I love books. Hello, author here. Historical fiction, spec-fic, romance, gimme All The Books. Movies, I prefer action flicks but I won't turn down a good sci-fi. Mysteries and magical-realism? Yep, my ass is warming the seat. As for games, I can't call myself a "gamer." I'm more a Cribbage and Quiddler kind of gal. I've never played D&D (Gasp! I know! I think I lose my fantasy-author credentials for that.) Video games? Uh, no. I don't have the skills. Or the patience. Or the dexterity.

Now, comics...comics....~rubs hands with glee~

My love of comics/graphic novels comes from the evolution of learning to read. As ankle-biters, we start with picture books. Big pretty pictures and a dozen or so words per page. Comics have more pictures and about the same number of words on the page. I went from The Littlest Raindrop to Archie to Classics Illustrated. My Flash Gordon (the movie) comic survived traveling the world and my childhood. Asterix & Obelix taught me German. Monstress shares a shelf with Sandman and Snow, Glass, Apples. I really want to build out my mythology collection with more non-Western sources. (If you have suggestions, drop them in the Comments, please!)

I'm the fangirl who keeps checking my favorite webcomics to see if/when they're going to end up in paperback. So yeah, you could say I like comics. I am in awe of the talent of the artists, the colorists, and the letterers. My not-so-secret author wish is to collaborate on a graphic novel series. (Yo, Universe, puttin' it out there!)

Then there's the middle ground between the novel and the graphic novel: the illustrated novel. Has the word count of a novel, but way fewer pictures than a comic. Regardless, the illustrations are amazing. The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits and The Child Thief are glaring across my living room at The Fairy Bible.

So, uh, there you go.

Hope you all are staying healthy, washing your hands, and practicing physical distancing. We like our readers and want you to hang around for a long time.