TLG Blogpalooza: A Little Bit Whimsical?

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I'm very pleased to say that we have over two hundred entries into the giveaway already. Many are multiples, of course, but it's still very cool!

Now onto today's post:

I get asked about the inspirations and influences behind THE LOST GIRL all the time, and I thought it was about time I talked about the latter. I've mentioned FRANKENSTEIN several times, which isn't surprising considering that's the story I stole the bones from and went on to add my own flesh (not literally) to. And, of course, as the book's inspiration, it's certainly influenced it. 

But I'm not going the FRANKENSTEIN route today. Instead, today's teaser is going to be me talking about what you can expect from the book; basically, talking about two people (well, their work) that influenced not what story is, but how it's told.

Tim Burton
I'm going to say this just once and then resist the urge to gush like a fangirl: I love Tim Burton. (I also love Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter too, incidentally, so when you throw the three of them together (as they often are), it's like Christmas for me.) I love (almost) everything he's ever done. And when the first little twiglets of THE LOST GIRL started sprouting in my head, and Eva started talking to me, it was Tim Burton I thought of. 

Think about Edward Scissorhands (which probably owes a great deal to FRANKENSTEIN too!). A sad, lonely boy with scissors instead of hands, created almost from scratch by the man he considers his father? That's creepy, but cool. Whimsical. Eerie without being grisly. And think about Corpse Bride. An awkward young man accidentally marries a sweet dead girl. It's sad, touching, eerie. 

I guess that's what I wanted to create with THE LOST GIRL: something eerie, something sad, something whimsical. (I don't know about how well I succeeded, if at all. That's for you to tell me.)

Daphne du Maurier
I talk about her all the time, so if you're a frequent visitor to the blog, you may well be sick to death of be going on and on about how much I love some of her books. They're full of some of the most beautiful, lyrical, poignant, gorgeous writing I've ever read. I don't think I could never write as wonderfully as that, and truthfully I wouldn't want to copy anyone else's style, but I will say that that's where my love of reading (and writing) beautiful words has come from.

Also, almost all of her books (that I've read) have made me cry. I didn't deliberately set out to make anyone cry when I wrote THE LOST GIRL, but I did want readers to feel the way I felt when I read Frenchman's Creek or The King's General. I wanted them, quite simply, to feel.

TEASE OF THE DAY

No quotes today. Instead, the most beautiful things arrived last week, and we're two weeks from pub day, so I just had to show them off instead!