A lot of writers have certain rituals that are required before they can truly be creative. For me it is music in my ears and visuals to help me picture what I’m writing about—photos, maps, blueprints. I use Pinterest to store all these visual ideas.
For Making Magic, there were some very special events to visualize. I hope you enjoy the pictures!
Bailey – Before and After
Of course, first there is Bailey, the homeless pup that Thea rescues on her way home. The before and after pictures of Bailey helped me visualize and describe what happened to the poor pup. After seeing some real transformations of rescued dogs, I really wanted to portray what an amazing difference we can make in one animal’s life.
The Wedding
And surprise, there’s a wedding in Making Magic! Mel and Daniel’s wedding in the hollow in front of the old home place on the mountain must be perfect. So Mel’s reception is out under the Woodruff Mountain stars and decorated with lots of sparkling lights.
The food at the reception is, of course, very Italian. And the Cannoli are Jamie Lynn Campbell’s favorite although she is very partial to the Bongo as well.
Miscellany
As you know, Jake Moser, the hero of Making Magic, makes a variety of musical instruments which I have shared with you here on the blog, but another musical instrument plays a role in the story as well. Aaron and Emmy Croate are both talented potters and young Aaron makes ocarinas like the ones you see here.
Aaron’s sister Emmy makes gorgeous platters which also play an important part in the story. This particular platter was actually made by North Carolina artisan Debbie Little and is very close in appearance to the ones created by Emmy in the book, although hers have slightly different designs.
Characters
And of course, the characters. Some readers prefer to picture the characters for themselves, which is why my character-related Pinterest boards have warning screens so you don’t have to see the characters if you don’t want to. So, *WARNING*, if you don’t want to see the characters as I visualize them in my head, you might want to skip this part.
As you can tell if you explore my Pinterest boards, there’s no one individual who really matches my idea of any given Books of the Kindling characters, but I have to do my best to try to find a close match, mostly for the sake of the cover artist. In the case of Jake, I think Stephen Amell comes close.
Then there is Thea. For me, Felicia Day is very close. It is hard to find a solemn picture of the actress, but she captures the prankster in Thea so well! KaNaXa, the wonderful cover artist for Making Magic, gives us just a hint of a sultry, serious Felicia in her rendition of Thea.
I am constantly collecting and posting photos on Pinterest for books already published and ones yet to be written. I hope you enjoyed this little journey through the images in my head!