Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Historical Romances

A Paranormal Writer's View on Historical Romances.

Now, for the most part I'm a paranormal romance kind of girl. I write it, read it, dream about it, and if I could live in my world I would.

However, I do like the occasional, good historical romance. They're almost like going to another world, too. The characters in a historical have different values, and beliefs than we do. They behave differently also.

I love history, which might be another reason why I like historicals. However, most historical romances don't occur during my favorite time periods. Ancient history is my beloved time period. Particularly Mesopotamia and Ancient Greece.

I'd love to write a historical romance one day, but I don't know if I'd ever feel like I knew enough about the culture of those ancient peoples. Paranormal is easy in comparison, because I've created my own cultures.

So, do all those historical romance authors out there: How do you know when you've done enough research? Do you ever reach a point where you're comfortable with your amount of knowledge?

I'm seriously impressed by all of you who manage to write historical romance.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Dreams

The other night I had a great dream that would have made a very good science fiction novel. But I made one crucial mistake: I didn’t write it down.

Usually I write stuff like that down, but that day I had class and so the alarm went off at six twenty (the Devil’s hour in my opinion). So I was tired, annoyed, and in a hurry, and didn’t put pen to paper.

I can remember some elements of the dream, but not the actual plot. It’s driving me crazy, but it serves me right for not writing it down. I know I have to write things down or I forget.

A lot of writer’s get ideas from their dreams. I honestly don’t get that many. If I only wrote the stories I got from my dreams I’d only have written two books. And I’d now be waiting for inspiration. I wouldn’t even be a paranormal romance writer. I’d be a horror writer.

Yep, the only two dreams I’ve had that would be good as a novel have been scary as hell (with the exception of the sci-fi dream I had last night).

But for the most part my dreams are a mass of strange mumbo-jumbo that I can’t even piece together, let alone make a good novel out of.

Question: Have you ever had one of those ‘naked in public’ dreams?

Answer: No, but I have had one where I wasn’t wearing shoes in my high school. It was just after I got in trouble with the vice principal for my high heels being too tall. They were really obsessed with footwear in my school. They even banned flip flops one year.

So, do you get any of your writing ideas from dreams? Have you had a ‘naked in public’ dream, or have you just been without shoes?