Top 3 Costumes (Julie)

Halloween is coming soon and even as an adult, dressing up is fun (at least for me). It's a chance to let our creativeness shine. And also to role play from one of our favorite books or movies! I haven't had the chance to do much dressing up the past few years, but if I could, these are the top three choices I would love to try out!



3) Mary Poppins. I'm thinking of the dress she wears on the painting scene. It's so airy and dainty and fun looking. Wearing this one would be sure to put a song in my heart. I could frolic along the avenue eating a spoonful of sugar.

2) A Pride and Prejudice costume would be so much fun!! I love the period costumes and have always wanted to dress up in one of those...especially the ball gowns.


1) Tauriel from The Hobbit. Really, this would be my number one because her outfit is so similar to my own character-who isn't an elf but there are similarities. Dressing as Tauriel would help me get into character in more than one way.

 I doubt I'll be able to dress up this year, but what about you?  Any of the above, or some other favorite character your itching to try out?

Top 3 Story Inspirations (Lizzie)

A college friend, whom I hadn't talked to in ten years, recently contacted me to say she'd stumbled across The Rose and the Wand, read it, liked it (fortunately for me!), read my biography, and then realized she knew me. It was great to hear from her, and while we were catching up, she asked what inspired my novel. This is a popular question for authors and one that always interests me, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite story inspiration stories.

Top 3 Story Inspiration Stories

1. C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  C.S. Lewis was always very imaginative. As a child, he and his brother, Warren, created their own world, called Boxen, with, not surprisingly, fantastic animals. But it wasn't this childhood story world that, per se, became Narnia. When Lewis was sixteen, his imagination was captured by a daydream of a fawn hurrying through snowy woods carrying an umbrella and a bundle of parcels. It wasn't until Lewis was forty that he wrote his famous story in order to find out where this mysterious fawn was heading.

2. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island This story proves the benefit of occasional boredom--of entertaining ourselves out of boredom, to be more precise. During a vacation in the Scottish Highlands, Stevenson passed the time by painting a map. As he looked at it, it was suddenly swamped by a crew of imaginary pirates. “They passed to and fro, fighting and hunting treasure, on these few square inches of a flat projection,” he said. And Treasure Island was born.

3. J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit Sometimes my mind wanders while I'm at work. It's comforting to know I'm not the only one. Tolkien, a professor at Oxford University, was grading exam papers when he came across a blank sheet of paper, and promptly wrote down the first thing that came to him: "in a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." But what was a hobbit? And why did it live in a hole in the ground? Fortunately for us, these questions so captured him that he wrote his beloved story, and its companions The Lord of the Rings, to find out.

To discover what inspired several other famous stories, you can visit this Writer's Digest article.

(The Rose and the Wand, by the way, was inspired by the question, who was the enchantress who turned the prince into the beast in the Beauty and the Beast tale? And what if she were under a curse herself?)

What do you think of these? Do you know of any other fun story inspiration stories? Or what inspired your stories?

Top Three Fantasy Soundtracks (Erin)

As you know by now, I love fantasy books and movies. But what can you do when real life intrudes on your ability to spend an entire day escaping into the worlds of books and movies?

Listen to music, of course. I enjoy lots of types of music, but these are my favorite fantasy albums:

Honorable Mention: (Shhh. . .I am cheating!)  The Hunger Games: Songs of District 12 and Beyond

This compilation by various artists is loud, energetic and inspiring. It makes household chores go faster, and always makes me want to be brave. However, it is too distracting for me to listen to while writing or grading papers, so it falls just short of my Top 3s list.



 
Three: How to Train Your Dragon by John Powell: This album is full of hope displayed in almost-Celtic sounding strings, and never fails to make me smile. My favorite track is "Forbidden Friendship," which shows the beginning of Hiccup's unlikely friendship with Toothless.






Two: Harry Potter by John Williams: John William's magical music makes frequent use of bells and chimes, which are synonymous with Halloween and magic at my house. Don't worry--we don't cast any spells, or enchant anyone, but we do enjoy planning costumes, treats and fall fun for our friends and neighbors (and we make a great butter beer--non-alcoholic, of course). 

One: The Hobbit by Howard Shore: I love listening to this album when I sit down to work on a scene in my Work In Progress. It captures the wandering spirit of adventurers, and inspires me to take risks in my writing. Although I love the instrumental sounds, and two-CD length, my favorite track is "Song of the Lonely Mountain," by Neil Finn.
"We must awake, our lives to make, and in the darkness a torch we hold."


What are your favorite fantasy songs or albums? Leave a comment and let us know!