The Enchanted Orb - What Inspires Rhyll Biest

Welcome, once again, to the Enchanted Orb. If you stop to look inside, you can discover where author, Rhyll Biest, finds her inspiration.

Please welcome, Rhyll Biest!

Inspiration

By day I’m a humble foot soldier in Canberra’s uptight army of darkness, the public service, so it’s a real thrill to come home at night and write things that are fun, passionate and totally inappropriate.

My sources of inspiration to write? OMG, those saucy sources are everywhere:

1. Brain Oompa-loompas: Oh, go on, don’t pretend you don’t hear little voices talking in your head while you’re scrubbing the toilet or whatever. Might as well make some money out of the little brain Oompa-loompas by writing down what they say.
2. Life and other random sh*t: Sometimes you see something, or hear something, and it just sticks with you, you can’t get it out of your head and it’s fun to play with that image or snippet or whatever and see if you can’t build it into something else. To give a fairly crass example, I love those random story generators and the idea of trying to make a go out of an idea like: a laborer who seems insane falls madly in love with a snide performance artist. Oh the hours of fun.
3. Things that don’t happen in real life but should: We’re all familiar with reality, the rich marrying the rich, beautiful people dating other beautiful people, justice not being served, and the undeserving being rewarded. Well, my fictional world is the place where I get to set that sh*t right. In my stories, it’s the plain, very narky girl who gets the handsome man (and boffs his brains out something severe). Sometimes she even gets two handsome men, woo-hoo! And if someone grows a pair of fangs, or wings, or slays the undead in between the boffing and the romance then I’m really happy because that stuff just doesn’t happen enough either.
4. The love of words: I confess, I’m a word slut. The most random words excite me (fug, thrombosis, berm, rapacious, malachite) and give me ideas to write about. In fact, sometimes I just want to do it with the dictionary all day long.
5. Silly conversations with other writers: You know how these go. 

• Cate: We should write a three-volume epic about a virgin warrior vampire colosseum.
• Rhyll: OMG, you’re a genius. Let’s start now!
6. Pictures: Sometimes, when I’m really stuck, I look at pictures like this one for inspiration. I don’t want to, but I force myself to. I’ll do anything for my art.
7. The joy of being an innate trouble-maker: Fiction offers a slightly less troubled and destructive life path for those able to channel their energies into ruining their characters’ lives as opposed to, say, that of their neighbour or spouse. Home-wreckers, schemers and war-mongers are all just frustrated writers. The reverse may also be true.