Author Spotlight! Cindy Lynn Speer

I’ve been sitting here, dissecting my writing, trying to discern the difference between what is important and what will bore the reader to tears.The thing that has struck me is this: Is there a difference between influence and inspiration?

Dictionary.com calls influence: 1.the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others: He used family influence to get the contract.

And it calls inspiration: 1.an inspiring or animating action or influence: I cannot write poetry without inspiration.

So, basically, the answer is: (drum roll, please) According to the dictionary, there really isn’t a difference between influence and inspiration. But I’m not certain I altogether agree with that, either.

I’ve always loved the creepy (Christopher Pike used to be a favorite of mine, as a teen) always been a sucker for romance, (A new Laura Kinsale book would always make my day) and I live for the fantastical. When I was younger the house was much smaller, and my mother’s books were stuffed all over the place…the top of the kitchen cupboard, in a huge, pressboard book shelf in the back room.

I remember opening the sliding doors of the shelf unit, pulling out all sorts of books and dusting them. I’d make stacks of what I wanted to read–Norton, Heinlein, Bradley. I’d live in their worlds while on the school bus, or while mowing the lawn, or walking through the woods behind my house.

Fairy tales, fantasy novels, murder mysteries…they all went into the back of my head and composted (a not exactly flattering but very apt metaphor I stole from Neil Gaiman) every convention, every device, every type of plotline… they’re all there. They can’t help but be, because I’ve read so much. I’ve acted them out ever since I was a child, with dolls, with daydreams. And I feed my mind constantly with more stories: from books, movies, TV shows, or the tales brought to me through music. So I’ve been influenced, really, by everything I’ve ever experienced.

And yet, when we talk about influence as a writer, it seems to me it’s a bit more about how we learn to be writers. Barbara Hambly, whose book, Dragonsbane, was the first fantasy I ever read, taught me a lot about fantasy and fantasy-horror conventions…and how to turn them into something new. I loved what I read, deeply, and because of that I learned a lot. It was she who inspired me to actually try to write.

Many years later, the marvelous Sandman comics by Neil Gaiman would also teach me…influence me…a great deal, but they also inspired me. The influence was that writers, indeed, are allowed to dive into things mythic. I really doubt I would have been ready to find a home at Drollerie if I hadn’t been influenced by Neil Gaiman, but I was inspired by the simple idea that we need to tell each other stories.

That idea brought me back to writing, it took my hand and said, “OK, you used to love this, life beat you up a bit and made you tired so you stopped, but let’s start writing those stories that are in your head down again.” I read Gaiman’s “Snow, Glass, Apples” and later, while reading a book of Charles Perrault’s tales, I realized that it was not only acceptable to write a sequel to a fairy tale, but that someone might actually read it.

Music can also be a huge influence on me. I wrote a short story called “Remember” while listening to a very obscure song called “Room for the Memory”, sung by INXS’ Michael Hutchence. I would stop the tape, hit rewind, play the song, write for a few minutes, repeat. Yet, if you were to listen to the song and read the story, you would probably not be able to see the connections.

Songs bring concrete feelings and visions to me. “Stella was a Diver and She was Always Down”, by Interpol, is a song I play when I want to get into the mind set of my reluctant assassin, Monaco Johnson. I’ve been writing her story, off and on, for ages, and when I want to remember her, I find that song.

I’ve also found that art influences me. There is power in one picture, one piece of art, and it asks questions. There are some pieces of art…a friend once gave me a picture of a pathway into the forest, and I wanted to capture the feeling of the forest, the darkness along the edges, the eyes that seemed to be watching me from the shadows. It is a picture that has come back to haunt me again and again, but I have never found where that image goes. Someday.

Everything is a story. The vase on your table with its dried flowers you just can’t yet bear to throw away, the snow floating gently upward before spinning back to cling to the branch outside the window, the man standing next to you in line clutching his basket filled with two loaves of bread and a couple cans of soup. Stories. Influences. Inspirations. Everything lives in the heart of the Muse, which beats in the ears of every person who would create art.