Thursday, May 2, 2013

Inspired by: Rings





Rings appear in pretty much all of my stories.  They speak to me on so many levels and materialize in my writing almost without thought.  The circle of life.  Membership rings. Families. Secret societies. Wealth. Power. Devotion. Commitment.  Jealousy. Love.  Magic.  They are even reflected in the circular story structure I prefer to use.

But enough esoteric stuff. 

Last weekend, I went to look at an estate (read that as old trailer in the boonies) and ended up purchasing all the vintage jewelry.  When I purchase a large lot, I don’t look at each piece in detail—that could take days. I focus on the more valuable pieces I can quickly spot, base my offer on them and figure the ‘junker’ stuff is going to be a large portion of the profit.  Any extra nice items I spot when I get home are a bonus.

 At any rate, a weird thing happened when I got back to the shop and started sorting the good, the funky and the plain ass ugly jewelry. There was a vintage poison ring that looked like the one in my gothic fantasy, which is about to go on submission (except it was a woman’s ring and the one in my story is a man’s).  The ring plays a large role in the story’s inciting event. Finding it felt like a good omen.

THEN, I dug a little deeper into the jewelry pile and discover a not so beautiful spoon ring—clearly homemade.  The cool thing is, in my current project, the main character is a teenage girl who makes jewelry out of silverware.  Once again, I found a ring that connects to a current story’s inciting event.  Good omen #2, I hope.


There also was a huge rather gaudy ring, which my husband dubbed: the super-villain ring.  It has an eye-like, yellow and red natural stone at its center, grasped by spidery legs of gold.  He wants me to sell it on Ebay as an evil ring, of unknown powers. I’m thinking have just found the inspiration for my next story.



Thursday's Children Blog Hop is open to all.  Add your name to the link below and tell us what inspires you!
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24 comments:

  1. Great visuals, Patty. I am so envious of your day job. You have so much awesome inspiration all around you! And having read your first chapter, the jewelry connection was cool.

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    1. I've been dying to buy a spoon ring or have one made out of a nice bit of silverware. I may still do that.

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  2. Oh my God, Pat, that IS one wicked looking ring!
    And awesome to have spotted some omens in your find!

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    1. Actually, I think my husband was glad it's too big for him. I really wanted to transform him into an evil overlord ;)

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  3. Great finds! That poison ring looks very cool. All very good omens. Good luck on your submissions! :)

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    1. Yes, my fingers and toes and everything else is crossed for all of us.

      (The poison ring fits my little finger, yay!)

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  4. Yes! You DID take that Twitter chat and turn it into TC, and possibly future ms, "gold". I love rings too. My grandmother had some amazing ones, including one made by a student of Benvenuto Cellini, so 16th century. It was stolen when our house was broken into, really tragic.

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    1. That is worse than tragic. I hope is turns up at some point or at least that the thief was cursed by taking it.

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  5. Those are good omens indeed! Those rings have so much personality (though none of them would ever grace my stubby gardener's fingers). The super-villain ring looks especially super villain-y. :)

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  6. Yeah, I have to save my rings for special occasions. Usually mine are mostly stained green and dirty :)

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  7. Ooooh, that poison ring is amazing! Love how you're finding your way back to your stories in reverse through these! :-)

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    1. Backward is just what I thought, too.

      Man have I been thinking about last years NE-SCBWI and wishing I was going to be there with you. Next year, hopefully.

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  8. How interesting and fortuitous that you found spoons to reflect several different characters! Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by. The hard part is selling them :(

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  9. Hmm. I can see why rings inspire you. Very cool.

    http://www.miaceleste.com/?p=298

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    1. I just wish the Lord of the Rings hadn't made it hard to make ring the real focus of a story. Oh, well.

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  10. Yeah, I'm going through and pricing the entire lot today. There's even more stuff than I thought, which is fantastic.

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  11. I'm obsessed with rings, too. They definitely find their way into my stories, even if just in a description. These are fabulous finds, Pat!

    ~Dannie @ Left to Write

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  12. Now that I think about it, I wrote about rings of rippling water last night. They're everywhere!

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  13. So cool! I love when things in the 'outside world' connect with my stories! And my obsession is necklaces...

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    1. Necklaces are kind of like extra large rings. Actually, some of the rings in my stories are too large for the girls so they wear them on chains as necklaces. Love them too.

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  14. Fascinating! Don't you love when you find something in the real world that closely resembles an object or character in your stories? It's like finding their doppelganger.

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  15. Very much. I often have objects that inspire parts of a story. But find them after the story is written gives me a chill.

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