Feeding the Visual Muse

I’m sure you guys have heard me rant and rave about my coffee addition, how I use Junior Mints or M&M’s as a motivator for word count, or even how addicted to Pinterest I am. All of these have made it into the list of things that I need to write.

 On the Pinterest note, there is a new little resource that I have now found invaluable to my writing process. I am an extremely visual person. As I’m writing, I see people in my head, hear them speak, watch how they walk across a room. Always have. Always will.

 

One of the things that I find hardest is writing houses, getting the picture of them in my head. Houses can be a character of their own, and like everything else in the story, the setting of a scene says as much about the story as what is going on in it. What is Wuthering heights without its moors? Where else could have Sex in the City taken place?

 

So when I’m writing a character’s house, I need some visual stimulation to help make it real for me. Enter VRBO.com. Vacation Rentals By Owner. (The site isn’t paying me, I promise). Basically, it’s like searching a real estate website, only their search function is awesome, and because it’s about vacation houses, you get some really schmancy places. Lots of picture, good descriptions. And if you find a place that you really like, you can rent it for a week, really get into your characters skin. Or just help you get away for a weekend. Which I did. And it was great.

 

It might be a little creepy that I’m looking into other people’s houses, but it works, and I think we have already established that writers will do whatever they need to get the story on the page. At least I’m not actually looking into other people’s houses, right?

 

 

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Amanda Arista

Author of the Diaries of an Urban Panther series

AmandaArista.com