Dreaming In Books

Hey, all!  Later today I'll be featuring a review of Diane Chamberlain's The Good Father - and as a part of the blog tour, here's a guest post from Diane herself, an invitation to a live chat with Diane, and a link to tomorrow's stop on the blog tour.  :)  Here's Diane...

How do you continue to find inspiration after writing so many novels?

 If anything, writing so many novels has made it easier for me to find inspiration rather than harder, because I’ve learned to see it in the everyday. Inspiration is everywhere, but as with most things in life, it can take practice to recognize it. When it’s time for me to think about writing another book, I become a sponge. Everything I see and hear is fodder for a new story. I listen in on conversations in restaurants (sorry!). I go to museums and study the paintings of people, looking into their eyes to imagine what they’re thinking. I watch movies to help me hone my story-telling skills. And I pay attention to my dreams, which often offer fascinating dilemmas I can use to test my characters, even if those dreams are so scary I have to turn on the light and play computer Scrabble until I can clear my head! One thing I tell new writers is that they need to live in order to write. It know how much it helps me to get outside of my writing cave and move among people. I pay attention to what they say and do. Sometimes I go to the airport and simply watch the reunions. Some are joyous occasions. Some are borne of tragedy. I imagine the stories of those people--and of people wherever I go. Not only does it feed my story-telling imagination, but it makes me feel more empathy for people in general, and that can’t hurt either in the creation of fully dimensional characters or in living my day to day life. The Good Father was inspired by observing a young man and his little daughter in a coffee shop. If I hadn’t been there at the moment they walked inside, I would have missed this story I had the joy of writing. Tomorrow I might spot an old man in a restaurant or a teenager at a bus stop, just waiting to inspire me. All I have to do is pay attention.

For more information on the live chat with Diane, here's a look at the invitation:




To see the participants in the tour and the blogs that are hosting excerpts from The Good Father, go to the tour website here to view the schedule.