Images help me to describe. Describe a face, a location and even an emotion. The dark, dank, dusty old antiquated building elicits a different emotion than the bright, light-yellow colored dining room with windows that stretched from the depths of the ground to the heights of the clouds. How did I do that? By looking at an image and selecting certain features in order to emote.
I have always had certain actors or actresses in mind to play the characters in my books should they ever be turned into movies. Often, I would study their faces and then create my own little twists so that the characters were indeed their own entity. But again, I used an image to help me.
Writing has been called "painting with words." I love that. Seriously, I simply adore the idea of putting words on a page that will help you to paint an image (and even an emotion) in your mind's eye. I do take painting with words somewhat seriously.
Lately, I have been using google images to search for my current WIP as well as the prequels to Loving Her (that's right, LH fans! You asked for more of these women, you're getting them! Hopefully this year, if I can get them all done!). I have been discovering actors and actresses that I hadn't heard of before, but they would be perfect for these characters. It's a lot of fun, honestly. I look at faces and narrow them down until I have the "one." And then I will look at lots of pictures of them. It's so exciting to put another face to the face that is in my mind. And as I study, I write. Like an artist or sculpter looking back and forth between their canvas and the model, I go between the images and my writing.
I can't describe why, but it gives me such excitement and joy. I just have so much fun writing this way. It makes it that much more enjoyable.
I hope that my writing elicits wonderful paintings in your mind and that my joy is detectable as you read.
Happy reading! :)
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