Music and images go into creating a book.

More than words go into creating a story. Besides chocolate and coffee, a few key ingredients are pictures and sound.

When I'm in the brainstorming part of coming up with a new story, I first run over to Pinterest. So . . . yeah, that's an excuse. I run over to Pinterest whether I'm creating a new story or not. But my point is that authors often use pictures to anchor their characters in their mind so they can write about them more accurately. Here are some of my boards to give you a feel:
      The Captive Heart
      Out of the Frying Pan
     Brentwood's Ward

Music is just as important as pictures -- especially if I'm writing at a coffee shop where screaming kids are running around. That's when I need to plug into sanity.

My preference is Spotify, but you can use Pandora or whatever. Put together a playlist that inspires you to write the story you're working on.

For example, while writing The Captive Heart, I used some Colonial fiddle music and then mixed it up with some contemporary songs which used lyrics describing the state of some of my characters. Here it is:



Sure, novels are about words, but sometimes in order to put those words down on paper, you've got to use other mediums for inspiration.