Road Trip Wednesday: Images and Imagination

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Road Trip Wednesday is a “Blog Carnival,” where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs.

This Week’s Topic:

What images inspire/ represent your WIP or favorite book?

Several months ago, my hubs wanted me to play Machinarium, a new game he discovered on iPad2. At first, I wasn’t interested, knowing how addictive game playing would be for me, and I needed to work on my then-rough-draft of WIP2. But then, he opened up the game, and promptly sat the iPad2 on my lap. This was the image that greeted me:

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It reminded me of the landscape that I saw in my mind’s eye of WIP2’s opening scene, that I was compelled to play the game. (Plus, the robot character is really cute. I talk more about the game HERE.)

The above image was the first ever visual representation I had for my WIP. I mean, I became thoroughly addicted to Pinterest well before Machinarium, but the images on my board capture more of the mood or science-y aspects of WIP2, but nothing as close to capturing an actual setting that had only lived in my mind as Machinarium’s Junkyard scene.

Over time, I eventually stumbled upon this picture:

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It’s like a world within a world, right? It also captures the scenes leading up to The End of my story.

Cool, huh? So, now you can kinda see what the beginning and end(ish) images are for WIP2. For more images that capture the mood of WIP2, visit my pinterest board HERE.

So how about you? What images inspire/represent your WIP or favorite book?

SciFridays: The Green Float Concept

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Seeing real life scientists and engineers work together to create collaborative projects as the Green Float Concept (and others–see THIS ARTICLE) makes me proud to be a science fiction writer (and, proud to be a big nerd, evidently).

To me, science fiction is more than just setting, like a post apocalyptic world or a spacecraft. Don’t get me wrong, those setting are still COOL, but it’s not the main reason why I love science fiction.

When I think “science fiction,” I think of Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert…those pioneers in the genre who used their writing to create new landscapes that evolved from current political/social climes or adventure stories that explored/explained the unknowable (at least in their day).

Science fiction is an ally to innovation and progress because it explores the “what ifs?” and lends itself to the “why not?” Why not create a rocket that can break free of Earth’s gravity and land on the moon? It sounds sort of like a beta test, right? I mean, alien conspiracies aside, I wonder how motivated we would have been to explore the moon if Jules Verne had not written From the Earth to the Moon.

It all brings to mind this Einstein quote: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” What an awesome gift to have, the ability to influence a whole generation with imagination and all the other possibilities (and power) inherent in creativity.

That Moment

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Today is officially spring.

And, to mark the occasion, the magnolia tree outside my living room’s picture window burst into color, seemingly over night. The change in view was so dramatic, I blinked at the tree for a few moments, wondering where it came from (admittedly, I hadn’t had my coffee yet, so my brain was still asleep).

View from inside my living room. Looking out my picture window is better than TV, especially in the height of summer with all the woodland critters out and about.

Of course, the tree didn’t exactly bloom over night. For months, it was there, all awkward and spindly, slowly waking up after winter, grumbling and stretching and feeling for the sunshine in all the gray.* 

A lot of unseen processes skittered about beneath the surface, preparing the tree to flower at just the right time. Despite the unusually warm winter. Despite the other flowers that bloomed prematurely in February. Despite all other reason for it to bloom earlier because conditions seemed right, it waited to bloom when it was ready.

When that moment arrived, it was startling. It was as if before that moment, I only saw the idea of the tree. A shadow of its true tree self. And, though it took its time to show me what it really is, it’s still beautiful in its own right, and just as beautiful as the other trees that bloomed before it.

Magnolia tree blossom. I had to take the picture quickly because the birds and squirrels were angry that I disrupted their hang out.

*Note: this may not be scientifically accurate.

The End. For Now.

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I woke up mere hours since I passed out from reading feeling antsy. Like I needed to be doing something, like getting ready for work, or working on WIP2.

But then I remembered that today is my day off from the paythebillsjob, and I have reached The End of WIP2.

(Would that also explain why I woke up with Lady GaGa’s Edge of Glory blasting away in my mind??)

Though I’m feeling kind of like this…

…it’s a little short-lived because I know I still have a lot of work to do. But, I’ll think about that another day.

For now, I plan on reading my huge stack of books that I promised myself I would read once the draft was finished (and seriously was the ONLY thing that got me to push through and cobble together scenes last night, and bask in this gloriously sunny day.)

P.S.

For the curious, my to-read list for today includes:

  • Under the Never Sky, by Veronica Rossi
  • Legend, by Marie Lu
  • Two chapters of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
  • and whatever my crit partners throw my way. *stares at Kayla*

This will be SUCH a fun day off!

PPS,

Fun times! Random.org has spoken, and I get to give away a copy of Wanderlove to none other than my #accountibilibuddy, Laura! I’m sure that extra Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy entry helped you out 😀

Speaking of #accountibilibuddies, thank you for all the #badgerbadger love on Twitter, and for letting me badger you! It helped me to focus on writing, for sure! And guess what?? I have LOTS of free time now to hurl these virtual bad boys at you, muahahaha!

SO, What’s been going on with YOU??