Inspiration

by | Dec 18, 2019 | Author Posts

This book, right here, this is the one.

When people ask how I came up with the idea for my books, I tell them it traces back here. Not directly. Not in a straight path. But in a set of sparks and leaps of imagination, at its essence, it starts here.

I don’t think I could be a bigger fan of Cassandra Clare. Her books are amazing, her characters feel like friends, and her stories stick with me. That alone is enough to be inspiring to a writer and I would definitely say I aspire to craft stories half as well as she does. But on top of that, this one little word stood out to me…

It had been a while since I revisited this book, although The Infernal Devices is one of my favourite series. With Christmas coming up, I decided it was a great time to force my reading tastes on my friends, so I picked up a copy as a gift, but of course I couldn’t help flipping through it to find THAT PAGE…

Here’s the line that started it all: “The box is a Pyxis.” Simple line. Almost boring on its own.

But I loved the word Pyxis and had to see what it meant. Enter the standard Google search, et voila. OK, so it took a little more than that to dream up a book, but that truly was the first spark. My characters don’t use the word pyxis at all the same way that the Shadowhunters do in Cassandra Clare’s books. It’s a whole different thing in the Green & Gold world. Cuter, I’d say. Usually friendlier than a demon too (though maybe not always – insert evil laugh here)!

What was really fun, though, was seeing all the other coincidences of this particular page. The chapter is even called “We Are Shadows” and my new release is titled “Shadows”. That made me grin like an idiot.

The word “carapaces” is on here, and you know Josh has used that one as one of his nicknames for Cara! There’s even a character named Thomas, who I have to say I’d forgotten. No similarity to our Thomas, given that he’s a cat, lol.

But my favourite is Will’s explanation of demons who “don’t have souls; their consciousness comes from a sort of energy”. What a fascinating description. Especially because I think of the Pyx in my stories as creatures of pure energy, fuelled by memories, and the way that they share the consciousness of their hosts and hold their memories far beyond any mortal lifetime makes them rather like souls in a sense. They are simultaneously similar to, and the complete opposite of, Clare’s demons.

Hence my utter and complete love for THIS PAGE of Clockwork Angel (not to mention the whole book and series – if you haven’t read it, what are you still doing here?).

So thank you Cassandra Clare for the wonderful stories, the beautiful characters, and the all-important spark of inspiration.

Books in the Green & Gold series: