Enchanted Orb - Nicole Murphy on finding the heart to continue

One thing, a writer needs is inspiration, but another is the ability to keep writing - and this sometimes needs a little help. Australian writer Nicole Murphy has found that inspiration, and has a few tips to assist those of us who might need to find it, as well.

Take it away, Nicole!

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What inspires me to keep going when it seems things aren’t working out.

Previous Enchanted Orb posts have dealt with what inspires writers to write, what inspires individual stories. They are fabulous posts – if you’re looking for a bit of inspiration yourself, go have a read.

What I want to talk about today is what inspires us to keep going during the dark times. They happen – to all writers. A book or series doesn’t sell as well as you’d hoped. The contract you were sure was coming suddenly evaporates. Your first book is finally out, after years of struggle, only to be met by a bad review.

There are times it seems that we writers are masochists and you wonder why you keep going.

Not writing, that is. Writers will forever write. But submitting. Publishing. Shoving your precious words and stories out into the cold, harsh reality of the world.

Here’s some of the things that have inspired me and kept me going.

• Hearing other writer’s horror stories. I did a series on my blog called “Dreams and Fulfilment” where I asked fellow writers to talk about the ups and downs of the journey. The one story that particularly hit me was Kerrelyn Sparks’ story. I love Kerrelyn’s books, and reading her tale of the hit after hit she took before she had success has many times helped me get up, dust myself off and keep going after my own hits.
• Keeping snippets of great feedback from the past. The first bit of feedback I ever got that I kept was from science fiction great Piers Anthony. I was in an anthology that a collaborator of his published. After Piers kinda trashed most of the stories, he said there was two stories that held potential and that he kinda liked reading and one was mine! Over the years, I’ve collected more – mostly from reviews, but also the occasional fan letter. When it seems everything is conspiring to tell you you suck as a writer, these remind you that you don’t.
• Switch it up. When my urban fantasy trilogy Dream of Asarlai didn’t do as well as the publisher and I expected, to the extent they knocked back the sequel, I decided to take a break and move into contemporary romance. I’ve just sold my second contemporary novel, so that seems to have been a great step to take.
  
• Experiment. Spend some time away from the genre/characters/world of the book that’s dragging you down and play with words, ideas, themes. Go way out. Write poetry if all you’ve ever done is prose. Write horror if all you’ve ever written is fluffy bunny stuff.
• Do something for others. There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says something along the lines of ‘when times are dark for you, do something good for others and you will find the light’. When we’re feeling bad, it’s hard to think of doing a good thing for others but it really does help take you out of yourself. For me, I like to do things such as run conventions or edit and publish anthologies. Helping contribute to other people’s success makes me feel great.
• Spend time with other writers. As you read this, I’ll be at Conflux 9, the Canberra-based science fiction/fantasy/horror convention I’ve been involved in running for ten years now. Immediately following that, I’m off on a week-long writing retreat with my writing buddies. Their support, encouragement and recognition that this is something all writers go through will greatly inspire me to keep going.

So if you’re finding that you’re in a bit of a slump because the dream isn’t turning out the way you want – try one of these ideas and see if it can help you to bounce back.

Or perhaps you’ve got an idea that’s worked for you in the past. Please share it.

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Nicole Murphy is a fantasy/science fiction/horror writer who also writes contemporary romance as Elizabeth Dunk. Her urban fantasy trilogy ‘Dream of Asarlai’ was published by HarperVoyager Australia and her contemporary romance ‘Arranged to Love’ by Escape Publishing. Her next contemporary, “The Lies We Tell’ will be out in August. She’s an editor, publisher and convention organiser who’s looking forward to a chance to write again.

Magic Thursday - Love and Marriage

By Nicole Murphy

“Always, my thought was I would make an arranged marriage. I know it seems terrible to people brought up with the mantra of personal choice, but there are hundreds of thousands of strong, happy marriages in India because of this system. I’ve lived in Australia, I’ve enjoyed working here, I love my job but I never once thought I would do anything but marry an Indian man my parents approved of.”

            “Growing up in Australia didn’t change your mind at all? Make you think love is the answer?”

            “Love is wonderful,” Maddie said. “But it can also blind you to reality. You can be in love and not make a good marriage because you’ve not worked through the practicalities of melding two lives into one. Love is possible in an arranged marriage. My parents are devoted to each other and yes, there is a part of me that hopes I can find that with my husband. But love isn’t the right place to start.”

            “Then where is?”

            “Compatible life goals and visions. Agreement on the question of children, and how they will be raised. Respect for one for the other and a desire to see that the other is happy.”

            “Attraction?”

            “It’s preferable, but not necessary to begin with.”

            “That sounds sensible, if utterly unromantic.”

            Maddie decided to put it in terms he would understand. “When you’re taking over a new paper, do you make the decision based on whether it appeals to you or not?”

            “Clever girl. No, not just appeal, but whether it adds value to the company, whether it’s worth the risk.”

            “Surely marriage is a more important decision than buying a newspaper?”

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The above passage is from my latest release – ‘Arranged to Love’. It’s contemporary romance, so not really a Darkside Downunder book.

But this is Valentine’s Day and I thought it worth while thinking about love and marriage. The character above, Maddie, is very practical about the place of love in her life but then again, she’s yet to realise she’s fallen head over heels for a guy.

Maddie’s point of view – that love doesn’t really play a part in making a good marriage – is something that pops up from time to time in paranormals. I think that with some of our paranormal creatures – those who are long lived such as vampires – it should come up more often.

Love as the basis for choosing a marriage partner is a very recent construct. I’m a fan of Regency romance and I love those books, but I’m very aware that the prevailing opinion and action at the time was that love and sex wasn’t the reason you got married. You married for position, power, wealth. And a lot of those marriages would have been just as satisfactory as our modern love-based relationships.

A creature that’s lived for centuries would be well used to this system and probably consider it the natural order of things. They might consider love as the reason for choosing your life partner to be an amusing foible of the moment that will pass as generations die and humanity again shifts its opinion. Perhaps they go so far as to think it foolish.

It just makes the moment they realise they have succumbed to love all the more delicious.

I think that it not only makes sense but is needful that an immortal creature would crave love. What else do they have to look forward to in their loves except that heady rush of falling in love? Everything is so passe. But it doesn’t make sense that they would then decide to marry someone for love, when for most of their life their understanding – the world’s understanding – was that this was folly and doomed to failure.

Particularly a creature like a vampire, for whom status and wealth and power is so important.

So what do you think? Should vampires, werewolves and the like marry for love, or should they still be very much on the marry for the best merry-go-round – until that great love knocks them off their feet?

Post your comment below and one lucky person will win a copy of Books 1 and 2 of my urban fantasy trilogy, 'The Dream of Asarlai' - Australia only. Everyone else will get access to more than 80k of free fiction.

Magic Thursday: The importance of festivals

It’s all Tansy Rayner Roberts’ fault (and by the way if you’ve not read her Creature Court trilogy, get onto it – fabulous read).

Anyway, Tansy’s trilogy is full of festivals and events, because it was in part based on Ancient Rome and they were mad keen on an excuse to party. In a blog post, she talked about the fact that so often in fantasy, there’s very little in the way of festival, holidays, celebrations and yet it’s such a momentous part of our own lives.

I realised that I was guilty of that very thing. I’d created this full, intense, detailed world with my secret magical race, the gadda, but I hadn’t considered what their major celebrations would be.

So I created The Festival of the Star. Each year on July 18, the gadda celebration the codification of the rules and principles which guide their life, protect their power and help ensure their secrecy.

There’s a big festival in the headquarter town of Sclossin, with stalls and food and drink and laughter and fun. At night, there’s a mass concert. The bardria (the ruling council) spend a large part of the day sending gifts to those gadda who aren’t able to make it to Sclossin that year.

Kinda a combined Federation Day/Cinco de Mayo/Christmas thing.

The interesting thing was that once I created the Festival, supposedly as a backdrop to the story, it forced it’s way in. The final moments of the trilogy occur at the festival and in fact, the sequel novella is set there, as is evidenced by its name – The Festival. I even self-published The Festival on July 18.

The Festival became important to my characters (as these things do) and so it became important to me. Now, it feels like a very real thing – July 18 I kinda wonder what’s going on in Sclossin, even though the whole thing only lives in my head.

What about you? In your fantasy/sf/horror writing, what festivals/celebrations have you built into your world?

EDIT: Unfortunately there's a problem with the codes, and I can't guarantee that there will be copies of the trilogy available before Christmas. By way of apology, I'll send all commenters a copy of the sequel, The Festival. Don't worry - it makes sense without having read the trilogy :) Email nicole at nicolermurphy dot com for your copy.

Comment below and go in the draw to win one of THREE copies of the Dream of Asarlai trilogy in Apple format. You can keep for yourself or pass onto someone else as their Christmas present! Winner will be chosen and notified on Saturday.