Today we have visiting Love Bytes new author Selina Kray 🙂
She stops by to talk to us about Inspiration and she also offers a Giveaway !
Welcome Selina!
Book: Like Stars
Author: Selina Kray
Publishing Date: Nov. 14th, 2014
Publisher: MLR Press, www.mlrpress.com
Word Count: 114,500 words/approx. 370 pages
Twitter: @selinakray
Email: selinakray@hotmail.ca
Website: www.selinakray.net
Blurb:
What if your true love walked back into your life five years after his death?
Nathaniel Thredgold has finally returned from the war. Or has he? His lover, Wesley Douglas, isn’t sure.
Wesley must put aside his engagement, his disbelief, and his anger to give his professional opinion. The truth about their relationship isn’t an option. But is this stranger really the Ravensworth heir and Wesley’s long-lost love? When your heart’s at stake, there’s no room for doubt.
Set in the Edwardian era, Like Stars is a tale of mysterious identities, scandalous family secrets, and lovers in a dangerous time.
Inspiration
Hi, everybody! I’m Selina Kray, and this is stop #4 on the Like Stars blog tour! A huge thank you to the lovely people at Love Bytes for hosting me today, especially Dani. And to you, for reading! Since I’m a first-time author, I thought I’d talk a little bit about what inspired Like Stars, and creative inspiration in general.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I think of a new idea for a book at least once a week. Most of these end up on my subconscious’ slush pile. But the best ideas, the ones that go from “Oh, wouldn’t that be cool?” to haunting my every waking hour, are usually lightning strikes. I’ll be doing something totally unrelated to writing—usually something mundane like walking the dog—and suddenly, an image will pop, fully formed, into my brain, like the goddess Athena. Which isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of metaphoric whittling and hammering and soldering involved before the final manuscript polish. But the strongest ideas have an impenetrable core that doesn’t change, it just gets built upon.
As a former fanfic writer, I still use some of my old tools to get the creative juices flowing. Oftentimes, an actor or a fictional character will inspire me, and I’ll ask myself: “What story would I tell for him if I was free to write anything?” or “How would X react if he was forced into these circumstances?” Some of the best advice on inspiration I’ve ever read comes from Josh Lanyon in his fantastic Man, Oh Man! Writing Quality M/M Fiction: think about a familiar het plotline, insert dudes.
This, of course, will only get you so far. It’s up to you to embellish that basic storyline with unique and engaging elements (because I am not endorsing plagiarism). Still, it’s an excellent starting-off point, one that can take you to any time, any place, any situation. Titanic with dudes. The Hunchback of Notre Dame with dudes. Little House on the Prairie with dudes. Brokeback Mountain with… oh, right. If you have a bookshelf or a television, then you have a bottomless supply of potential plotlines.
With romance novels, and especially erotic romances, most authors are fortunate enough to have one well they can dip into forever. Yes, I’m talking about sex dreams. It’s a simple equation: creative mind + objects of desire = smutty storylines. I’m sure many authors will claim that it was really a cause/medical condition/setting/world event that inspired their story. My name is Selina, and I’m here to confess that I’m usually just trying to give depth and character to my fantasies. Which, let me tell you, is a whole lot of fun. 😉
But an erotic romance novel isn’t just about the romance (or the sex), and inspiration doesn’t just involve the main storyline. Everything from the name of a minor character to a sub-plot can reveal a source of inspiration. In Like Stars, for instance, one incidental character, Brother Grivakis, is named and modelled after a family friend. A whole scene in the book is based on a painting that has inspired me since I was a teenager and used to hang on my bedroom wall: Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (which you can see here: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/his/CoreArt/art/rom_fri_wand.html ) Even the title, Like Stars, is taken from a line in the poem “Saying Your Names” by Richard Siken, one of my favorites: “His mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars.” (At first, the book was called After the Storm, inspired by the Mumford and Sons song, until I realized there was no storm in the story, literal or otherwise.)
At the end of the day, all of these ‘behind the scenes’ tidbits are incidental. An author’s sources of inspiration are only valuable to the reader if they help that author create a vibrant, engaging world (or if you need to write a blog post about the topic). You readers will be the judge of whether or not I achieved that with Like Stars. But, as you can see, I certainly didn’t lack for inspiration!
Selina
Selina Kray is the nom de plume of an author and English editor. Professionally, she has covered all the artsy-fartsy bases, having worked in a book store, at a cinema, in children’s television and in television distribution, up to her latest incarnation as a subtitle editor and grammar nerd (though she may have always been a grammar nerd). A self-proclaimed geek and pop culture junkie who sometimes manages to pry herself away from the review sites and gossip blogs to write fiction of her own, she is a voracious consumer of art with both a capital and a lowercase “A”.
Having long ago realized that she was the Salieri to the lit world’s Mozarts, she has embraced her love of erotica with intricate plots, complex characters, and lots of heart. Whether she has achieved this goal is for you, gentle readers, to decide. At present, she is hard at work on future novels at home in Montreal, Quebec, with her wee corgi serving as both foot-warmer and in-house critic.
@selinakray
selinakray@hotmail.ca
www.selinakray.net
Like Stars is out Nov. 14th, 2014, from MLR Press.
Join me for the rest of the Like Stars Blog Tour!
Previously at Joyfully Jay and Rainbow Gold Reviews
Today also at Coffee and Porn
Nov. 12th at Sinfully Sexy Books and Prism Book Alliance
Nov. 13th at Eressë’s Live Journal
Selina is giving away a ecopy of her new release “Like Stars” to one Lucky winner
I really want to read this book, it sounds like an amazing reading. Thanks for the giveaway!
This one will be out soon and I hope to be on line to get it.
The book sounds really good I like to read Historical story and this one is very interesting.
Like Stars sounds intriguing! And I like the cover. Thanks for the post and contest.
Can’t wait to read this book!
Sounds like a great book. Congrats on your first release 🙂
Looking forward…..
Hi, everybody! Thanks so much for commenting, and a HUGE thanks to Dani for letting me post here. Good luck! 😀
Thank you for this post and giveaway…count me in plz!! TY
Hi guys;) Please, don’t count me in for the giveaway:) My father just bought me a copy:))
[…] the kind folks at Love Bytes let me talk about […]
The book sounds great!
sounds awesome! please count me in
It sounds like a thought provoking read. Thank you for the giveaway
Count me in and thanks for the giveaway
Sounds like an interesting story! Thanks for the chance at the giveaway!
Thank you for the great chance:) Count me in, please. Congrats to Selina 🙂
love the cover
It might be incidental, but I find the inspiration behind the stories fascinating. Thanks for sharing with us!
Sounds like a good read. Count me in please.
Lovely cover, please count me in.
This book being the first release explains why I’ve never heard of Selina Kray before. But what a nice chance to correct that 😉
This sounds like a very interesting book.
Wow, it sounds as if there are many more wonderful stories on the way. Congrats on this one. Looking forward to it. 🙂
I’d love to read this!!!
Thank you for an interesting post, I often use visual things to inspire stories or a lyric from a song and wonder what plot I can brew from it.
I would love to read this story and its on my wish list, I have enjoyed following the blog tour and all the different posts, thank you 🙂