hollywood

Behind the Scenes with Me, in honor of Dalhia Adler’s Book Birthday! #BtSWeek

BehindtheScenesBlogTour3

 

I’m so excited for Dahlia’s book release and honored to be a part of her book blitz for release week! So, for the release of her Behind the Scenes, here’s a behind the scenes with me…

I want to give you a glimpse into where it all begins for me: Inspiration. Where do ideas come from? How do little sparks of inspiration turn into entire novels and stories worth being told? There are lots of ways ideas come to me, but I’d say these three are the main ones that really set me off when it comes to a new project:

  •  Music. I love music with smart, descriptive lyrics. Nothing gets my imagination off and running like clever phrasing in a catchy song – it basically begs for a story to be written. Once I actually start thinking about that story, creating characters in my head and visualizing their stories, I build a playlist of songs and artists reflective of the feeling I’m going for with that particular story. Throughout the writing process, the playlist changes depending on the course the plot takes until, by the end, it finally becomes a finished list of songs that match up with the plot arch – it’s pretty cool. This is a small sampling of the playlist for the book I’m working on now:

playlist 1playlist2

  • Teenagers. As an English teacher, I spend a ridiculous amount of time with teenagers, and I never seem to get tired of them. They’re fun. Hearing their stories, their hopes and dreams, their struggles… They’re smart and they care about life and the world in general way more than most adults realize.I’m never at a loss for ideas because of them, and writing dialogue is as simple as listening to my students.
  • Pinterest. What did we do before Pinterest existed? I can tell you that I am definitely a visual thinker, so having a virtual bulletin board to organize what things are going to look like is such a huge help to me. I love that I can search for just about anything in the world and find a related pin. For example, for my current work in progress, one of the main characters is a Latino senior in high school who talks about her quinceanera… and, because Pinterest is awesome, I found a picture of a girl I’ll use as inspiration for my character. My boards for this WIP is still private, but here’s a small glimpse just for you:

pinterest 2

 

So what inspires you? What gets your creativity going? I’d love to hear it!

Make sure you also check out Dahlia’s book, Behind the Scenes. I really, really enjoyed it and highly recommend it for high school readers and up! All the links you could possibly need are pasted below:

In Bloom by Katie Delahanty

in bloom

It seems like, in general, the New Adult genre has slipped into a pattern of beginning with a character deeply affected by some horrible tragedy who finds another character deeply affected by some horrible tragedy and they cling tightly to each other and can’t survive life without the hope of their love. Aside from a few authors keeping it fun, like Cassie Mae for example, New Adult authors are giving off this impression that adulthood has to begin with depression or something. It’s annoying.

In Bloom is a breath of fresh air for the New Adult genre. Delahanty has written characters that are realistically flawed, but who do not let the circumstances of life become these huge depressing things that dictate whether or not they survive. If you’re looking for depressing New Adult, this is not it. In Bloom felt to me like a slightly older version of Jen E. Smith’s This Is What Happy Looks Like: charming, romantic, fun, and smartly-written. Delahanty has been shaping these characters for years through her blog, and you can totally tell. They feel like real people.

I loved Olivia as a protagonist. She handles the pressures of moving to LA to pursue her dreams wonderfully, making great friends and ignoring her crazy mom along the way. She gets a fun job and breaks into the Hollywood scene, meeting the front man of her favorite band, Berkeley. She is accident prone and witty and smart, and several times throughout her story I laughed out loud at her antics.

Then there’s Berkeley. He’s sweet and romantic and down-to-earth despite the fact that he’s a world famous rock star, and his pursuit of Olivia is the cutest thing. I developed a total crush on him as I read, and I can only hope he shows up again and again and again in future Delahanty books.

Until there are more books in this series, though, there’s always twitter… The characters in the book tweet at each other at the start of each chapter, but it never occurred to me that there would be actual twitter accounts I could follow. But then I found them, and it was magical. I mean, you usually finish a book and have to say goodbye to the characters, right? Not this time, though… find them on twitter, follow them, and let them interact with you. I hope it makes your day and much as it made mine.

In Bloom twitter

One more thing I loved about this – Delahanty didn’t feel the need to make it sound like a “grown up book” by having her characters cuss all the time. I appreciated that. Like I said, In Bloom is a breath of fresh air. That being said, I wasn’t a fan of the graphic nature of the love scenes. It surprised me because the language was so clean, and I was thinking I could really recommend this to teenagers and students getting out there and making life decisions, but I can’t do that now. Plus, I think the love scenes would have flowed better with the overall tone of the rest of the book if they’d been more modestly written.

In Bloom releases today! Click here to find it on Amazon.