Inspiration, Advances and How to Write the Breakout Novel

Happy Saturday!  This is going to be a sort of a rambling post about a variety of topics but since it's the weekend I didn't think anyone would mind. 

First off - people always want to know - where do you find your inspiration for your stories? That, of course, is an almost impossible question to answer because who the heck knows where some of this stuff comes from?  What if's and why not's and chocolate-induced daydreams can produce all sorts of wild ideas.

However, I do love the notion of the fantastical being tied to what we know as the real world.  Myths and stories that have a finger in our reality.  An example that comes to mind is a holey stone.  For those of you not up on your faerie lore, a holey stone is a stone that has had a hole carved through the rock by water or the power of nature. You can see my niece, Emily, holding a holey stone above.

It is said that if you peer through a holey stone you can see into the realm of Faerie.  Many cultures believe holey stones have healing and magical properties. They are also said to carry the wisdom of the ages and offer protection if worn or carried.  Below is a picture of my daughter, Carly, holding a rare white holey stone.

Whenever we go to the beach we look for holey stones.  I have quite a collection of them in my office, some with two and three perfect holes carved in them.  I'm not going to tell you what I see when I look through them.  You'll have to find one and discover their magic yourself!

Other means of inspiration, when all else fails - the Candy Drawer!

(Yes, this is an actual drawer in my house. It's enough to give you googly-eyes, isn't it?  I can't believe it took me this long to think up this brilliant idea!!! Inspiration in a drawer. :D )

On to Advances - one my favorite writing-related blogs to read is Kristin Nelson's Pub Rants.  Kristin is an agent and extremely knowledgeable about the publishing industry.  She is very gracious and matter-of-fact about sharing her knowledge and often has helpful and interesting posts.  Yesterday she wrote about advances for debut authors.  I don't know why, but it seems like these sorts of statistics are difficult to find so I was pleased to read what Kristin had to say.  As we all know, it varies wildly but she at least provided a benchmark to begin with.  Thanks Kristin!

And finally, on to How to Write the Breakout Novel.  (Don't we wish we all knew how to do that one!!)  Another favorite blog of mine is that of Sarah Davies from Greenhouse Literary.  Delightfully English, (I can always hear her accent when I read her posts) and incredibly knowledgeable (she was an editor in London for 20+ years) Sarah is running a series of posts on How to Write the Breakout Novel. So far she has posted five parts to the series, each brilliantly written in a way that shows us what she means and makes you really think about the story you're writing.  The topics, thus far have been: An Inspired Concept, Larger Than Life Characters, A High Stakes Plot, A Deeply Felt Theme, and A Vivid Setting.  If you are a writer, definitely worth your time to check it out!

So, lots of good information to share.  I'm always on the lookout for writing related blogs that make me think about the craft of writing as well as providing insight into the industry. What favorite blogs do you recommend?