L.A. Garnett – Author

I love to write—always have! Throughout my life I’ve found inspiration in a variety of sources, and I thought it might be fun to share a few of those now.

(1) Sunshine by Robin McKinley — this is a really wonderful novel about a young woman, a baker her friends and family call Sunshine, who is kidnapped by vampires. She escapes with another, better, vampire, and they work together to defeat the worse vampires. I love the relationship that is built between the characters, and the main character being a baker tied in nicely with my own taste for it.

(2) Taughannock Falls—an absolutely gorgeous waterfall in New York, the largest free-falling waterfall in the United States. It is 215 feet, and I love to stand by the base and look up at it in awe. There’s a good reason most of my books involve nature!

(3) Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn, followed closely by the rest of the series. In this world magic users are not trusted, and the King has sent Senneth out to assess the threat, along with a group of magic users and the King’s Rider Tayse, who has a distaste for magic. I devoured these books as a teenager, and I credit them with jumpstarting my love of elemental magic.

(4) The ocean! I’ve always loved the sound of running water, and there’s nothing like the waves crashing onto the shore. Sometimes I like to think about how vast it is out there, and it’s both amazing and a little frightening. That headspace can be the best place to write from.

(5) The moon – I love the moon. It was my first word (“moona”, if we’re being specific) and I’ve always adored staring up at it in the night sky. I don’t have a particularly good camera, so I don’t have my own picture of it, but I’d highly recommend taking a moment to look up at it tonight. It’s always there, after all, and always beautiful.

The visuals and climate in this book are heavily inspired by what I know, which is primarily the northeastern United States. Later books will explore a bit, but readers should find familiarity in a city coming out of the icy grips of a long winter, and the mixed hope and growing responsibility spring might bring.

I’d love to hear about what inspires you – is it primarily nature, like me? Or do you make playlists for every book, or gather pinterest boards to keep your motivation going? I’d love to hear in the comments.