Jacqueline C. Thomas - Romance Novelist

The Lake Michigan Affair

Where Inspiration Comes From

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After reading a great novel, or seeing a brilliant film, I am often left with the question of, where did the inspiration for this come from?” I’ve always had the thought of inspiration as something that struck, like lightning but in fact, sometimes inspiration is slow, and closer resembles influence rather than inspiration.  Shakespeare said all of the world is a stage. I could not agree with him more.

I am often in awe of where inspiration and influence show up in my writing, sometimes it is from the most mundane or random things. I am always in awe to see where things pop back up. For instance, a few years back I watched a British documentary about one of the grand hotels in London. I found it interesting but didn’t think any more about it after I watched it. Earlier this year, I wrote a romantic novel set in part in a grand, old hotel, the type of hotel that is an institution, and a cultural landmark. It wasn’t until I was deep into writing the work that, I needed to visualize the hotel and the images from the documentary came to mind. I did not set the book in that exact hotel, in fact, the hotel in the book is completely fictitious, but I could see the influence of the hotel in the documentary.

I really enjoy television shows and documentaries that take people out of their comfort zone, to see how they or other’s react. I think this is the writer’s equivalent of gold! I am also in graduate school, furthering my study of communication. There are so many social nuances within a culture that it makes inspiration and influence robust. I think this is why I enjoy the study of communications so much because, in a way, we are writing our own stories, and when one acts or reacts out of the norm, it is interesting. It is how and what we communicate that makes writing so much fun at times. I love to put myself in my character’s shoes and logically look at what their reaction should be.

I have always had an overactive imagination. As a kid, I always thought it was a bad thing. I won’t lie, sometimes it got me in trouble. As an adult I love my overactive imagination, it is my happy place. My childhood was a non-traditional and although it was difficult, at this point in my life I would not trade it. I have come to realize that all of those difficult situations not only made me the person I am today but have given great inspiration for writing.

For instance, the book that I am currently querying, the main character, Rosalie, is trapped in a life where religion dictates her life. A large part of my childhood was spent in church, against my will for the most part, where religion dictated what was done or not done. I grew up in a similar atmosphere to the one Rosalie lives in, where a wife is expected to be a wife and a mother, and that is her main function in life. Luckily for me, I saw past that and rejected that idea. It caused quite a stir when I finally did step away. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that it is wrong to have the goal of being a wife or a mother, just as long as the woman has free will and choice in the situation. My point here is, that I would have never thought that I would’ve written a book about a romance within a particular religion and the implications that has. While the denomination of religion is different from Rosalie’s from the one I grew up in, it translates very well. Inspiration and influence really do come from the most random places sometimes.

When I go through something difficult, I often say to myself to observe the situation and the players involved, it might be useful later for writing. I try to look for the silver lining in all things, so a bad situation can possibly serve a purpose, rather than being just a rotten time. When you live with a writer, nothing is safe. We are observational people and experiences good or bad are recorded. I love to see how random things pop up in my writing. I often wonder when I am reading other’s works and it makes me think of something if that is where their influence came from.

What influences you? Tell me in the comments.

Now, this is the hard part..

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When my husband and I first moved in together he was writing fiction regularly. I was a “book widow,” one who had lost their partner to the craft of creative writing. We were both working two jobs and in college. Every spare moment he had was spent writing. I was happy for him and annoyed at the same time. Then the editing process began and that took twice as much attention. Once his work was complete then came the job of querying. He queried via snail mail, this was old school, now everything is done online.

Years later I began the process myself. My first book came flying out of me, I couldn’t type fast enough. Jon was supportive and brought copious mugs of tea and coffee, and later wine. As I’ve moved on, and began other creative works, the ease of writing is not always there. I had to work at writing, sometimes it was easy and the words just flowed and other times it is work. Then there is the task of finding a decent amount of time to write, not to mention crippling doubt at times and the dreaded writer’s block. The more I began to write, the more I realized it wasn’t so easy, it is work. Writing isn’t always fun, it is having to push through those times where it doesn’t feel like it is going well, that makes it work.

I naively remember finishing the first work that I thought might be good enough to actually try and publish. Jon, said to me, that the book needed an edit like I had never edited a work before. I had the book printed at my local printer and got my red pen out to edit. Editing was difficult! I laughed at myself for thinking writing was the difficult part. I went through my book word by word with my pen, marking typos and misspellings, plot holes and pulling out things that did not belong. Once the first edit was done, I did it all over again with a different color pen to make sure that I agreed with my initial notes and edits.

With my marked-up manuscript, I sat down in front of the computer. Holy cow, if I thought writing was hard and editing was difficult, then making the corrections in the work was formidable. I once again laughed at myself thinking, you thought writing was hard, and then editing on a hard copy was rough, making the edits is the real hard part. Once I got all of the edits in, I had the book reprinted and repeated the process all over again. Finally, after two to three passes at this, I felt the book was in a solid enough spot where if I wanted to I could send it out to the world for querying.

I wrote a book doing Nano-Wri-Mo, after my husband and sister put me up to it. The work that came out of that month turned out to be strong enough to go through the editing process. I have been editing this book for well over a year. At my husband’s urging, I began to think about seriously shopping it out to agents. I dug into what it would take to find an agent, and once again laughed at myself, thinking writing and editing was the most difficult part of the process. At least with writing and editing, I was in the driver’s seat.

I began to research how to query, how to write the pitch, where to find these amazing people, literary agents with their magical ability to bring a book to market. There are a million sources to find this information, some legit and other sources were as slimy and as sleazy as they come. Researching how to query took so much time, that there was little time to actually write. Then I had to work on my pitch letter. Writing my pitch letter was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Now I am in the process of querying my book The Lake Michigan Affair. Each time I fill out a query form or send off an email with my pitch, I literally have a wave of nausea. I have just started this process and it is nervewracking. I have received a few rejections so far and that is a strange mix of emotion too, relief, sadness and determination to keep going.

Someday, when I do get an agent and move through the next steps of the process in bringing work to market I wonder if the trend of “this is the hard part” will begin all over again. Hopefully, time will tell!