Synaesthesia and A Round of Words in 80 Days

Er… how much time is left in ROW80?

A week? Really?

Oh.

I started out keeping close track, doing quite well at writing at least #1k1hr each day. Actually, the #1k1hr is often the only actual writing I do…

I did complete a 23,000 word novel titled Audacity’s Chance in just 3 days, which makes up for many lost days, but I don’t think I’ll be able to say I “won” this round of #ROW80. But it was a good kick in the pants, and helped me along the way to finding out how to get-R-done.

I’m having a lot of fun with Synaesthesia. What started out as a short story has turned into a nice serial. I’m only getting about 20 hits on each chapter, but that’s not bad, for now. What I’m posting is basically a rough draft, as I haven’t been doing much editing as I go. Chapter 7, which went up this week, really could have used a time-out and a round of editing. Oh well. I wrote chapters 8 & 9 last night, so they will have at least a little editing before they go up. I’m keeping to the schedule of posting a chapter every Monday.

There are three main characters, and I think I’ve named five secondary characters so far.

Many writers like to find images to inspire or represent their characters. Here’s some of the images I’ve used to illustrate Synaesthesia.

John Quinlan as Kennealy

John’s image was the catalyst for the whole story. The painting on the left is by artist Francisco Martins, and this sparked the original story idea.

I first used John’s picture in a short story called Postcard. It was prompted by The Red Dress Club, and just a short, fun little story. Then I noticed that I was getting blog hits from people searching forJohn Quinlan, and eventually I made contact with the man himself.

I have John’s permission and encouragement to use his image for my stories, and we both hope that someday he’ll be on the cover of a romance novel. Maybe even mine!

Miss Riva Gijanto as Ruby

I first met Riva on the set of Star Trek Phase II. Part of what drew us together was that she shares a name with my daughter!

Riva was the perfect selection for Ruby… beautiful, smart, nurturing, and just a little bit nuts. Since she was already a friend, she readily gave her blessing to use her image to represent Ruby.

Besides Synaesthesia, I used Riva’s eyes in another short story The Eyes Have It.

John DeChancie as Atticus

I’ve been a huge fan of John DeChancie since I was a teenager reading his Castle Perilous books. Imagine my squee when he accepted my friend request on facebook!

I didn’t have him in mind when I wrote the original story. I had Kennealy’s image determined, but Atticus was still a nebulous entity. As the story developed, I started forming an image in my mind, then I realized that Mr. DeChancie would be absolutely perfect.

His reply when I asked to use the photo:

“Blog away, AmyBeth.”

Helen Mirren as Helen

No, I’m not personally acquainted with Dame Helen. I wish. But who better to play Atticus’ wife? I didn’t want Helen to be a quiet housewife. In fact, Atticus is ironing his own shirt in the first chapter. She needed to supportive, but strong in her own right.

There are gazzillions of pictures of her all over the internet. But I wanted to make sure I had permission to use the photo.

Wikimedia to the rescue! I found several pictures of her , and picked this one by Caroline Bonarde Ucci. The full attribution to go with the photo is Caroline Bonarde Ucci [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Miranda Kenneally as Miranda

When I needed to name my main character on the spur of the moment, I went to my twitter feed and just waited for the next name to come up. That happened to be Young Adult author Miranda Kenneally, which is why the main character is Kennealy and one of the scientists is named Miranda. Blame twitter for the fact that her handle only has 1 L, while the correct spelling has 2!

I found this video on YouTube (Someone shared it on facebook or G+, I don’t remember who.) This fountain really makes me think about Synaesthesia. Imagine that is was a smaller scale, and you were lying on your stomach underneath it, with the patterns of water splashing onto your back. Imagine that you had a sense that allowed you to “see” the patterns, identifying them as flowers and musical notes and numbers, even though you were only feeling the individual line of water droplets. This is what I imagine Synaesthesia must be like.