It’s the holiday season, which means one thing above all else: this is the time of year when slogans and cheesy inspirational sayings are all the rage. Phrases like, “the best present is being present,” and “a goal without a plan is just a dream,” permeate our cultural consciousness as people come together to celebrate their religious holidays and the…
Author: alysmurray
Thirty Questions I Ask When Developing Characters
Let’s face it. Characters are hard. Deciding to write about one is hard. Coming up with a name is hard. Making them do stuff and have that stuff matter is hard. Characters are hard because people are hard; characters are difficult because people are difficult. In real life, people are complex and varied and while small glimpses and interactions aren’t…
How Playlists and Music Help Fuel My Creative Process
In one of my favorite musicals of all time, Passing Strange, there is a song called “Church Blues Revelation/Freight Train.” And that song, written by Stew and Heidi Rodewald, includes one of my favorite lyrics ever written in the English language. It goes as follows: Music is the freight train in which God travels. Bang! It does its thang and then…
Five Writing Lessons I Learned from Netflix’s “Nailed It!”
As everyone knows, we are living in the era of peak TV. With so much binge-able content available these days, there’s a perfect show for everyone. Whether you like the high fantasy you’ll see in Game of Thrones, the tear-jerking family drama you’ll catch in This is Us or the thrilling escapades of a regenerating Doctor Who, you can flip on your TV or…
Fairy Tales, Romance, and what Queen Victoria taught me about writing love stories.
If you’ve been on the internet in recent years, you’ve probably seen some version of the sentiment, “teach your girls to be warriors, not princesses.” Particularly popular after the release of 2017’s Wonder Woman (which is especially ironic, given that Wonder Woman is both a princess and a warrior, but I digress), this quote is often seen in the context of de-valuing…
Feeding Yourself
Today, I’m going to talk about something a stranger told me that has permanently changed the way that I write books and tell stories. I’m also hoping it’s not just applicable to writers, but to who we are as people, as well. But first… My book has a cover and it’s so gorgeous please just look at it and tell…
The Power of Love
Hello, dear reader! No, we’re not talking about Huey Lewis and The News today. For this, my inaugural blog post and in preparation for the release of my debut, The Christmas Company, I thought I would answer a simple question: Why do I write romance novels? On the surface, it’s an easy enough question to answer. I write romance because I…
