also known as: ‘You Can’t Escape Inspiration’
or ‘How Blaine’s Brain Works’
by Blaine D. Arden
All it takes is a word, a feeling, or an image. All it takes is the tiniest spark.
What am I talking about? Lines and anthologies, that’s what.
Like many other writers, even though I have no intention of starting a new story, I can’t stop myself from browsing publishers’ sites to see what they’re looking for this season.
Last year I stumbled across Storm Moon Press’ Weight of the Gun anthology call. My first reaction to reading about gun porn was ‘no way in hell’ and ‘not going there’. But, if I didn’t want anything to do with it, I shouldn’t have read it at all. The moment I closed the tab in my browser, my brain had already caught a sliver of inspiration, and I had no choice but to follow it and write the story.
Now, I write mostly fantasy, so I still wasn’t going to take a Luger and shove it where the sun don’t shine, and I wasn’t going to cop out by using a water pistol … err … *pushes thought firmly down* Not going to go there! You hear me?!
See, what I’m trying to tell you? You can’t escape it.
Anyway … moving on.
So, gun porn in a fantasy setting. I was actually going to go there.
It didn’t take long for me to come up with an image of a young prince who desperately wanted to be stunned during sex. There’s only one problem. No one’s allowed anywhere near him using magic because he doesn’t have the ability himself and his parents are somewhat overbearing. And all this from the word gun porn. Well, okay, sparked by the idea that it could be anything as long as it resembled a gun helped a lot.
It got worse, though, for him, I mean. For me, as a writer, it only became more fun. Soon I had a title. I already knew he was a prince, but for some reason I had the words ‘fifth son’ running through my head. So, I gave him four older brothers, by a margin as well, making him truly the baby of them all. Overbearing parents and older brothers. Poor, poor boy.
With no magic, he had no choice but to find a different line of work, and he started painting. He was quite good at it, too. He loved painting soldiers holding their magical guns and hung them in a private room where he could drool over them, could imagine them pointing it at him and … *cough* … Yeah … I think you get the picture.
So, I wrote his story — and gave him a boyfriend, of course — and before I could get second thoughts, sent it to Storm Moon Press, after my critique group had a go at it.
I had a wait a while, since I sent it in well before their deadline.
Their email arrived when I was on holiday in the UK, and their first line made my heart stop. They didn’t think it fit the anthology. It looked like I’d just received my first rejection.
But, wait, there was more. I read on, and I think I managed to give all the swans and geese on the camp site a heart attack after that. What I thought was my first rejection turned into my first acceptance because they wanted it anyway.
As happy as that made me, that’s not the point of this post. My point was that I never set out to write a gun porn story. Boy, was I wrong!
I have to admit, a lot of line or anthology calls don’t do a thing for me. But every once in a while, one word, one sentence, will spark an idea, and a story is born, whether I’m looking for it or not.
You can’t ignore Inspiration, no matter when she might be calling on you.
Blaine is a purple haired, forty-something writer of gay fiction with a love of men, music, mystery, magic, fairies (the pointy eared ones), platform shoes and the colours black, purple and red.
Born and raised in Zutphen, the Netherlands, Blaine spent many hours of her sheltered youth reading, day dreaming, making up stories and acting them out with her barbies.
Though she wrote her first gay fiction as a teenager, Blaine’s true inspiration comes from the wonderful gay romance called ‘Beautiful Thing’—an adaptation of the play by Jonathan Harvey—through which she gained some very dear gay friends and a postponed bout of puberty that caused an introverted and shy Blaine to finally grow into herself.
Supporting Blaine in all matters regarding household, teenagers, cairn terrier Kendra and pursuing her dreams, is her long-suffering husband for over twenty years.
When not writing, reading or at choir practice, Blaine has singing lessons and hopes to be in a band someday.
Blaine can be found here:
http://blainedarden.com
http://twitter.com/BlaineDArden
http://www.facebook.com/BlaineDArden
email:blaine@blainedarden.com
