Host: The Pen Muse Dec 1
Hello and thanks for having me here today as the last stop on my whirlwind tour! Since this is the end, I thought I’d talk about the inspiration behind the story.
All of my books revolve around the arts or an artist of some kind. I grew up surrounded by artists and it seeped into who I am enough that it flowed through to my characters back when I first started creating characters. I was in my early teens, or maybe even my pre-teens, when I wrote my first character sketches onto paper. Most often, the inspiration for them came from music, either from a song or album, or from musicians. I’m music obsessed. I always have been. The first things I wrote were musical plays based on songs from music books in my grandma’s library. So it only made sense that my first real characters were musicians. My Rehearsal series (2006 & 2008) was inspired by an actual band.
Next, I moved to a story about a young artist who refuses to call herself an artist for fear she can’t compare with her professional artist husband. That was a touch autobiographical. It can be highly inspiring to grow up around professional and could-be-professional artists, but it can also make you wary of trying to “compete” per se. That story became my first published, “Finishing Touches” (2003) and it’s set in my hometown area.
Now, with “Off The Moon,” I’m back to a musician. Unlike Rehearsal, which starts with the band playing local clubs and trying to get going, Ryan Reynauld has already made it to the top by the start of the story. He’s popular enough to need a personal bodyguard as he walks around New York City, and he has his life set up the way he wants it. He is the only POV character in the book. This is the first time I’ve used only a male POV in a novel. “Finishing Touches” is all in Jenna’s viewpoint, and the Rehearsal series varies between the three main characters (different scenes for different characters – I don’t head hop).
I didn’t at all plan for Ryan to be the POV character. My original intent was for Kaitlyn to take that role. It was her story that first formed in my head. The premise was based on quiet types – those of us who aren’t comfortable speaking in public or even in small groups. I wanted to focus on what it was like inside the head of such a person. Of course, I had to build her background as to why she felt that way, and her story grew deeper than I expected. I also wanted a way to pull her out of it, at least to an extent, and that’s where Ryan came along.
The viewpoint problem started as Ryan’s character grew in my head. He’s actually based (lightly) on a current pop singer whose lyrics I adore. It was the idea of who he was behind the scenes and how he became such a poetic soul to write such gorgeous lyrics when his outer appearance is so opposite that. It was entirely too intriguing and started to take over the story and I knew he couldn’t be only a secondary character to Kaitlyn. I had the thing in my head somewhat plotted, with the plan to alternate between Ryan and Kaitlyn, when I decided to use the story as my 2007 Nanowrimo novel, just to get it started.
A funny thing happened, though. Ryan hijacked the story and kept it for himself. He was too strong to fight.
