Talli Roland's Inspiration

The Inspiration of Museums

It was a stuffy day in central London, and I was flipping through the paper with abandon (okay, so I was clicking the online newspaper links with abandon, but that doesn’t sound as good). All of a sudden, a headline rushed out at me: Museum of Broken Relationships Comes to London. A Museum of Broken Relationships, I thought? What an interesting concept.

As I navigated through the pictures – from a garden gnome to a garish pair of Y-fronts – I couldn’t help constructing stories in my head. Where had those undies come from? What was the significance of the figurine? The more photos I saw, the more my brain raced . . . until I just had to write about it. And being the evil creator that I am, I thought up a situation to ensure maximum conflict: what if I placed a poster child for happy endings in a position of responsibility in such a museum? What would happen? Would she implode, or would she gradually become pessimistic? My main character of Rose was born.

When it came time for Rose to think about the logistics of setting up the museum, I called upon my experience at London’s Dennis Severs’ House, where there are ten rooms set to create ‘moods’ from between 1724 and 1914. As you weave your way through the silent house by candlelight, you feel like you’re interrupting the invisible occupants, an eighteenth-century French Huguenot family of silkweavers, in their dinner. Their presence eerily lingers through the smell of food and various objects strewn carelessly about. With every room, you feel as if you’ve stepped into a painting about to come to life. This is exactly what I wanted the Museum of Broken Hearts in my novel to feel like, so I had Rose create real-life spaces in which to place the objects.

Who says museum are boring? For me, they’re simply a starting point to tell another story.

Talli Roland has three loves in her life: chick lit, coffee and wine. Born and raised in Canada, Talli now

 lives in London, where she savours the great cultural life (coffee and wine). Despite training as a journalist, Talli soon found she preferred making up her own stories – complete with happy endings. Her debut novel, The Hating Game, was an Amazon Top 100 bestseller and shortlisted for Best Romantic Read at the UK’s Festival of Romance, and her second, Watching Willow Watts, was selected as a 2011 Amazon Customer Favourite. Build A Man is her latest release. Talli blogs here and can be found on Twitter here.

A THANKFUL YEAR~

This image is so powerful and is exactly what I wanted to say to my fellow writers and readers. I try to be very aware of all of you on my daily journey into publication and beyond. Every day when I sit down to write or edit one of my upcoming novels, I keep each and everyone of you in mind. I ask myself questions, "will my reader like this?" "Am I meeting my best potential as a writer?"

Everyday I make sure that I tweet or facebook how thankful I am for each and everyone of you. Because Thanksgiving isn't the only time of year that we should do this, but it is the time of year that we actually stop and listen with our heart, our souls, and celebrate with friends and family.

So, from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for helping make my dreams come true.

Where do you get your ideas for you novel?

Where do you get your ideas?

Tonya lists this as one of the questions NOT to ask a writer. I know a lot of writers hate getting this question. I have heard writers snap back at people who ask it. One writer answered it by saying, “I buy them!”

I can’t figure out why writers hate the question because I think it is an interesting one. Just where DO ideas come from? Why do writers have so many of them when some people just don’t?

I was driving along with my friend one day and saw a sign that said, “Cibolo Creek.” “Oh!” I said to her. “What a wonderful title for a book!” She couldn't figure out why that would be a good title or what anyone would write about it, but I immediately threw out several threads. I’m still planning to write that one someday.

A friend of mine was amazed at my “creativity.” I told her I was sure she was just as creative. But she just denied it. She couldn't come up with a single idea for a book or story. Just nothing. Even when I made some suggestions, she was not able to elaborate on them or see a story possibility. Then it was my turn to be amazed.

I love to hear from creative, imaginative writers about how, when, where they got an idea for a certain book or project. I think it is fascinating to see how someone else’s mind works. Maybe that’s why people like to read. We get into someone else’s mind, see things from someone else’s point of view, and learn to see the world differently.

I love to analyze my own stories and figure out where the ideas came from. For MR. RIGHT’S BABY, the idea came to me “out of the blue.” I was driving along not thinking of anything particular when the whole story popped into my head. I hadn’t planned to write a contemporary romance, but I just had to write this one.

Later, I wondered where it all came from and began analyzing the threads in the story. The little girl is my daughter. Some of the things Carly does in MR. RIGHT’S BABY are just like the things Shana would have done at that age. A friend of ours many years ago, wanted to marry his girl friend who had a young daughter. He loved that little girl so much. But he worried that he wanted to marry his girl friend just to get to be her daughter’s father more than to be her wife. That became another thread in the book.

I picked that book apart, following those threads back to their origins, sometimes to things that had happened 20 years earlier. And somehow, all those threads had come together that day on the road in the car. How they did or why then, I don’t know. But there it was, the culmination of many life situations tangling together into a new shape and blossoming into the plot for a book that had to be written.

Yeah, Tonya, I love figuring out where ideas come from. Mine, and yours, and every other writer’s. To me, it’s a fascinating study.

Anyone else interested in where ideas come from?

Visit Michele at her website!!

Superstition and One True Love?

Today is the release of my short story A SUPERSTITIOUS CHRISTMAS in the MADNESS UNDER THE MISTLETOE Anthology. Not only am I so excited to be sharing this journey with you, but I'm also sharing this journey with authors DD Scoot, Lee Lopez, and Talli Roland.

We have worked so hard to bring you this collection of short stories about our fun characters, and hoping it will leave you coming back for more.

More importantly, A Superstitious Christmas has made me explore the theory of true love. And if you have one shot at it, do you drop everything and go for it?

"Love is when you can be your true self with someone, and you only want to be your true self because of them." ~Terri Guillemets

There is no better time to explore love, family, and relationships other than Christmas time.

A SUPERSTITIOUS CHRISTMAS is a prequel to my third and final book in the Grandberry Falls series, Never Tell Your Dreams Before Breakfast.

It will tie up all the loose ends that surround Grandberry Falls and its residence, especially the matriarch and match-maker Hazel Greenlee.

Do you believe in true love? Or is it just the emotions of the holiday season?

MADNESS UNDER THE MISTLETOE IS AVAILABLE AT:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

CONGRATS TO MANDIE!! You are the winner of the TRICK AND TREAT FOR EBOOKS!!