Robin D. Owens

My inspiration is most likely to come from physical objects. The whole Heart series came about because I bought a bloodstone pendulum (I love bloodstone) and thought about divination. T’Ash, my hero, had dice (Divination Dice)
which foretold his future in the opening line of HeartMate. "Today you will meet your HeartMate." So, I had these bloodstone dice being thrown by an ALPHA MALE. I needed a culture where he wouldn’t be thought of as wimpy
because he used the dice and it was okay to believe in the magic of them. I also made T’Ash a man who'd chiseled the stone from the quarry, shaped his Divination Dice and forged swords -- a jeweler and a blacksmith. I actually sat down and started writing, learning all this as I went along. So the "Heart" series was born, and the telepathic cat with attitude who strolled into the book on page 3 was, of course, modeled after my own rough ex-alley cat.

Regarding my Luna "Summoning Series" I don't recall where that idea came from, probably childhood reading of Edgar Rice Burrough’s "John Carter of
Mars" series.. Before I began seriously writing, I'd tell myself stories before I went to sleep at night. They were usually fantasy with a touch of romance. I was in England when my agent contacted me with news that a new fantasy imprint was opening up. From her description, some of those stories I told myself swept back into my head, were firmed up and became the
Summoning Series: Average American women are Summoned by magical warriors to another dimension to fight invading evil...

And the physical object ideas continue: on the bookcase headboard of my bed, I have a small box with a bit of very fragrant amber resin in it. I love that scent and when I had to come up with a fragrance for the flying horses in the Summoning series, I used amber resin.

Then I mold the world to the characters. Celta got the 70 minute septhour
because T’Ash was making a sword in HeartMate and despite magic, it HAD to
take a certain amount of time, but I also wanted it to be done in a day. The
only solution I could see was to stretch the hour. As a regular worker, I
always wanted a three day weekend, so I made a week with one.

Right now I have rules I can’t break and can hardly bend, so they will stay
solid. But if something new comes up – like experimenting with time in Heart
Dance – I get to play with more world building (actually figuring out the
rules of time slowed the writing of the book considerably and made my head
hurt).

So original ideas come mostly from physical objects, then the characters
reveal the world to me while I write.

Thank you for the invitation to blog here, Heather, and for everyone: May
you enjoy your own creativity, whatever that may be, today.

Robin