2024 COVERS

2024 covers

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We are writers mainly from Australia and New Zealand who write speculative fiction with romantic elements. Be it fantasy, paranormal, dark urban fantasy, futuristic and everything in between.

Thursday 5 June 2014

Magic Thursday ~ Inspiration with Alexis Fleming


Today on Magic Thursday we have the lovely Alexis Fleming talking about Inspiration....



Inspiration 
with Alexis Fleming


What is it? Where does it come from? And why does it sometimes desert me?

Looking back now, I realise I was very blessed when I first started writing. Ideas for stories flood my mind and my greatest problem was finding the time to write them all down. Back then, I really didn’t have to struggle for inspiration.

I remember walking into a friend’s house and seeing a little black box, still in its cellophane wrapper, sitting on her bench. It was a stud finder, one of those little gadgets used for finding the studs behind the wallboards if you wanted to hang a painting or drill a hole. Standing in that kitchen, I played the why and what if game. “What if someone thought Stud Finders was some quirky type of dating agency?” The entire plot of a story jumped into my head and Stud Finders Incorporated was born, my first full length novel.

After my husband died, I took a long break from writing. Now that I’m back to it, I find that I have to hunt more for the inspirational vibes. I’ve learned to keep my eyes open and my ears tuned. It’s amazing what will spark a story idea — a snippet of conversation, a picture, a character trait you observe — but only if I open myself to the world around me.

My new release, Framed and Hung, published by Harlequin Escape, was inspired by a setting. In fact, the setting became an extra character in the story. We have friends that own and run a motel in country New South Wales. After hubby and I sold our motel, we went to visit them, staying in their very delightful establishment. That motel became the inn in Framed and Hung.

After speaking to our friends, I discovered the motel really was a staging post for the Cobb and Co coaches in early Australian history. The whole place has been restored to its former glory and ghost stories about certain rooms in the motel abound. Oh, what a way to spark a writer’s imagination. With my friends’ permission, I photographed as much as I could of the motel and Framed and Hung was born, right down to the ghost. Okay, so I borrowed a bit of poetic licence and changed things to give my inn a fresh appeal, gave the ghost a few quirky habits he didn’t possess before my intervention, and crafted my story, but it was that country motel that inspired it all.

For other writers out there? Where do you find your inspiration? What grabs your imagination and sparks your ideas? 

~~~

Framed and Hung by Alexis Fleming

Release Date: June 2014

Genre : Erotic Romance

eISBN: 9780857991621

Blurb:

Job satisfaction has never been so good…

When Zoe Chandler, Historical Restorations expert, walks into the inn she’s about to restore, the last thing she expects to stumble across is naked banker Jake Lord. It’s enough to give any woman a buzz, particularly if the man in question happens to be the object of all her high-school fantasies. Zoe’s not in the least bit disappointed, but Jake is all about control. Zoe’s not about to let this man have things all his way so she sets out to take him down a peg or two.

Nude paintings, blackmail and mind-numbing sexual frustration…

Can Jake take the heat or will they both explode?

Buy links

Amazon | iBookstore | Nook | eBooks.com  | Kobo | 



Multi-published author Alexis Fleming’s first book was a bedtime story for her children called Sammy the Snail, written and illustrated totally in crayon. She hooked her children in and created a new career for herself, a career that gives her immense satisfaction and a lot of fun. She now writes her own bedtime stories, but be warned — - these are strictly adults only! Alexis’s first love has always been romance, whether on this world or the next. Hot, sizzling relationships with a dash of comedy and a few trials and tribulations thrown in to test her characters. Alexis writes sassy, fun erotic contemporaries, as well as paranormals and fantasies where you’ll find yourself coming face to face with anything from sexy shifters to beings from other planets. When she isn’t tied to her computer, Alexis walks the beautiful beaches of Hervey Bay, or watches the farmer across from her house bring his cattle out to graze. The best of both worlds. What more could any writer ask for?



Connect with Alexis

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