I have a special guest today, as part of the Tasha Turner Coaching Virtual Blog Tour. My guest is Anjie Harrte. I’ve been working with Anjie on the shared blog Storytime Trysts. You can click over there and get a sample of her work – for free! Let’s hear what Anjie has to say about what inspired her current work.
Inspired by Murder and Betrayal
by Anjie Harrte
Do I multitask or am I just disorganized?
Maybe you can answer that question for me after reading this.
At present I have two works in progress (WIPs).
Why?
If I knew the answer to that question I probably would’ve figured out how to concentrate on one thing at a time.
I am in the process of rewriting the Lesfic romance novel that I started on the blog StorytimeTrysts and I am also writing the present story for the said blog.
The Lesfic romance novel came about when Cathy Brockman, the brain child behind the story blog, opined that she wanted several different romance genres. The other participants were writing; M/M romance, a supernatural romance and a m/f romance so I thought I should try my hand at a Lesfic romance. I relied a little on a personal experience of mine and then I tweaked it. My imagination picked me up and took me on a journey taking certain aspects of my life and changing them around to fit the story. For example the story is about two women who meet at a media house and form a friendship that develops into a relationship. I worked for a radio station some years ago and now work for a television station. During my tenure at the radio station I met a lesbian young woman with whom I became good friends. The story goes on to the show the difference between these women, one being more mature and looking for a love that is stable and long-lasting while the other is looking for thrill and excitement and the fast way to success.
It is here that my imagination takes over and drives the story down a path of betrayal, healing, new-found happiness and then tragedy when the main character ends up in the hospital.
I am always curious about the mind of people who set out to use others for their personal gain and this drives me to create and develop the antagonist who keeps popping up in the protagonist’s life and only causes ruin. Throughout writing the story I keep envisioning it as a Lifetime movie, with that final scene being a scuffle among the characters with one hanging on the ledge of a hotel on top of a cliff and the other prying their fingers off one by one. This work is not complete, for I am in the process of the first rewrite. It has probably been an entire month since I took a look at it. However, the last month of my life has also been very hectic. I have set the date; September 1st as the release date on which I want to self publish it and I have titled it: An Unexpected Desire.
Why that title you ask? Well it is because one of the characters was living a straight life until she met the other and then found herself attracted to her unexpectedly.
My other WIP is a contemporary adult mystery romance. Is that even a genre?
About a year ago the local newspapers carried a story of a young woman found in her kitchen stabbed to death. It was reported that three knives were used to commit the murder after each one broke. Her child had witnessed the crime and it was alleged that her husband killed her before fleeing the country. When I read this story I started thinking of the possible reasons this crime occurred. Then I started asking ‘what if?’ – the question that always gives birth to my works of fiction. In March of this year I started a novella which opens with that very brutal scene of the woman found stabbed to death in her kitchen. I never reached the end of the work as I began to lose momentum in the story. I began questioning it all the way through. So I decided to go back from the beginning and do a rewrite so as to get interested in my plot again. When June began and I was required to write a new story for the blog, I changed the storyline of this very WIP and presented it on the blog. The novella is called A Fatal Indiscretion and the blog story is called Fatal indiscretions. The novella is about a wife and mother who meets another married man and has an affair that subsequently costs her, her life – hence the title. The blog story is about a childless married woman grieved by her inability to bring forth a child. In an attempt to heal herself she goes to art classes where she ends up having many sexual encounters with her art instructor that subsequently costs her, her life. This work is still ongoing and is being written by the seat of my pants, in the form of episodes for each week’s posting on the blog.
Most of my works are either born from personal experiences wherein I write how I would’ve liked certain things to go, or how they should’ve gone to make it more exciting and dramatic, or in some cases born from newspaper reports about crimes taking place in my country.
How are your ideas born? What are your inspirations for writing? If you are a reader, have you ever read a piece of work and wondered how this idea was born?
* * * * * * *
Anjie Harrte – Romance with some Caribbean flavour
Anjie Harrte is a twenty-nine year old mother of one who resides in sunny Guyana, South America. Sometime between running a small business, having a full-time job and being a mother and partner she finds time to pursue her passion for creating stories. Anjie dreams up stories of contemporary fiction splashed with some romance, a little dose of murder or an ounce of suspense and sometimes when no one is looking she dashes in a little twist. When she isn’t doing any of that, she is decorating a cake, knitting a chair back or sewing her latest design. Anjie even finds time to lurk around and stalk people and pages on Facebook and you too can stalk her if you like at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anjie-Harrte/ ; you can follow her on twitter @anjieharrte; keep updated with her writing at http://authoranjieharrte.blogspot.com/
or check out one of her stories at http://storytimetrysts.blogspot.com/
quotidiandose 