Lois Greiman
Inspiration. It’s a funny thing. As writers we seldom know what will get our creative juices pumping. Toward that end we often try a host of things. My ritual often includes long walks, talks with uber creative friends and People magazine. That’s right, People magazine. Because, even though I’m not a particularly visually minded person it helps to see the faces of the characters I create. For instance, for my last completed manuscript I saw my male protagonist as this burly, macho, not too attractive warrior type. (My agent called him the oaf, but I’m sure that in her tender heart she really loved him.) His name was Rogan McBain and in my mind I saw him as Gerard Butler.
Okay, wait. Before you begin gathering your rotten tomatoes let me say that I think Mr. Butler is a fine actor. He’s had some wonderful roles which he has performed wonderfully, I just don’t find him very good looking. Which seemed perfect. I mean, that’s what I was looking for, right? So I taped up a couple of pictures of him by my pc.
I put Thandie Newton beside him because she was the ideal foil for him, but halfway through the book I realized something was wrong. I was uninspired, and I blamed it on Gerard. I just couldn’t work with the likable but rough-around-the-edges character from the Ugly Truth. Neither was he right in P.S. I Love You, or 300 or RocknRolla. It was while I was half-heartedly trolling for new pics of him that I ran across photos of him from Attila the Hun.
Did you know he played that part back in 2001 cuz I sure as Hades did not. Neither did I know that tacking up these new pictures of him would change the whole book. A couple little photos and it went from boring to bold, from dull to dynamite, at least in my own mind, and it was all because of how I envisioned him in my head.
True, Charming the Devil, the book that Butler built, won’t be out until February, but I’m excited about it. It’s the third installation of my witches of Mayfair series. I hope you enjoy burly Scotsmen as much as I do.
www.loisgreiman.com
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