IWSG May Blog Hop – Inspiration

Where does my inspiration come from? Here’s a few places:

  1. Music.

Music is by far my biggest muse. It’s so influential to me it gets a mention in my author bio. When I say I obsess over out of control playlists, I’m not kidding. I even have a scale of measurement for how strong, long, or writable a story is based on playlist length. Short playlist = no idea. About 50 songs = decent idea! 100 or more = we have a novel buds! Then there’s epic playlists exceeding that number, like my moth novellas, my Alice in Wonderland retelling, Masks series, and Pyotr book, the latter of which is, no joke, over 500 songs. This is incredibly appropriate to be the longest playlist by far, and I anticipate Pyotr to be a duology with both books exceeding 90k words.

  1. Media.

Other books, TV, movies, anime, video games. Sometimes a tiny thread of inspiration begins from something very small, a what if, an interesting line, a favorite character. I’m one to draw parallels to the media I’m consuming at the time I’m working on a WIP. Some of my biggest inspirational media have been: Persona 5, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and Twilight. I’m big on retellings, and have several retellings drafted or on the WIP docket, so classic books are also a big inspiration, as well as an easy source of ideas for Easter eggs and other tidbits to include in the story.

  1. Research on hyperfixations.

Research informs and inspires a great deal of my writing and world building. For example, I love moths and cryptids, so when I’m researching potential stories, everything from animal habits and environment to cryptids traits and lore can influence the traits and character names and settings of my stories. The first bits of inspiration for my Contemporary Cryptids series came from the idea that there are different types of moths, therefore there could be different types of mothpeople. From there, looking into the mating habits of moths inspired the idea of a moth mating festival/rave/party.

There are so many little Easter eggs I doubt any one person could point out every single one!

I think this is one of my favorite things about writing, how it all comes together from little bits to make its own unique thing full of dimension!

What are your sources of inspiration? Anything different from me? I’d love to know! Drop a comment or come interact with me on social media, @AmaraJLynn.

Check out the rest of the participants in the blog hop here!

Masks Character Playlists – Week Three

For week three, the FINAL week, the final playlist is last but not least, Avari, the character that started it all!

Avari’s playlist was (obviously) the easiest to pull songs for, as is apparent from the length of it versus the others. Since I’ve spent the most time in Avari’s head, he’s the easiest for me to get into. It was actually hard to keep his playlist from getting too out of control…

This week’s art is a never before seen commission of Avari that I’m so excited to finally share with you all! I’m super pleased with how this one came out.

If it wasn’t obvious, the background is a demisexual flag with Avari’s wings representing the black triangle part! I came up with the idea and thought it was quite clever 😀

Art by Lauren Crown! Check her out on Instagram or Twitter.

Don’t forget to pre-order Falcon! And I’m also doing a pre-order campaign HERE! The campaign will be open until the end of this week!

Journey to Publication: Falcon

Check out this blog post over on Alix Marino’s site about Falcon’s journey from first draft to publication!

Alix Marino Writes

I had the chance to chat with author Amara Lynn recently about their upcoming book, Falcon, third in a series. It continues the story of Avari, a monster-fighting college student with superhuman abilities, through an urban fantasy, new adult romance that has consistently received immensely positive reviews for its story, characters, and well-crafted enemies-to-lovers arc, all tied up with a neat little LGBTQ+ bow.

You can follow Amara on Twitter or Instagram, or check out their website here.

But the author’s journey toward publication is as interesting as any fiction, and they were kind enough to share a bit of that journey. Here’s what they had to say:


The story of how Falcon came to be is an interesting one. I think (haha).

In August 2017, my first book, and what would become the first in this series, Masks, was released. The whole story about how…

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Masks Character Playlists – Week Two

For week two (one more week until MASKS ahhh), the playlist is for your favorite sunshine love interest boy, none other than Chayton!

Putting together Chayton’s playlist was interesting, and fun, and a couple years ago, I never would have thought I could convey Chay’s feelings through more than a few songs, but here we are! There are some big surprises and revelations involving Chayton in FALCON that I won’t tell here. You’ll just have to read it to find out!

This week’s art is of course, also of Chayton, in all his precious cinnamon roll glory.

Art by Lauren Crown! Check her out on Instagram or Twitter.

Don’t forget to pre-order Falcon! And I’m also doing a pre-order campaign HERE!

Masks Character Playlists – Week One

As a countdown to Falcon (Masks #3), I’m going to be sharing my character playlists for the next three weeks!

A fun fact about my playlist habits is, I’m out of control. I make ridiculously long playlists filled with every song under the sun that gives me any feelings for the story whatsoever. As you can imagine, this makes for a very long, very unorganized playlist over time. Music is also one of the main things that drive my “feels” for my stories, and where I get the most inspiration. I actually measure how “strong” a story idea is based on how long the playlist is.

So since my main playlists are waaaay too long to share, I thought I’d make some more specific playlists from some of the songs on all the out of control playlists! And these are the results.

First up is… everyone’s favorite knife boy, Kaiden! I hope you’ll also enjoy this cute art by Lauren Crown! Check her out on Instagram or Twitter.

Don’t forget to pre-order Falcon! And I’m also doing a pre-order campaign HERE!

Falcon Cover Reveal + Goodreads Adds!

The Falcon cover reveal is HERE! Falcon is also now addable on Goodreads!

As some of you may know, I’ve been revising/rewriting Falcon since early this year after my most recent rewrite during 2019’s NaNoWriMo. It’s still in that process, which has been long and drawn out partly because screw 2020, am I right?

In an attempt to generate some excitement and add a fun little bit of joy, I’m going ahead with the cover reveal and adding it to Goodreads! No solid release date yet, but trust me, this one will be worth the wait.

If you haven’t read the first two, I’ve marked them down for the next two weeks! Masks #1 will be .99 cents, and Raven (Masks #2) will be $1.99! Be sure to pick ’em up so you can dive in! The first two are novella length so are quick reads!

If you’re looking for more, I have two FREE shorts, as well as a slightly steamy Valentine’s short which is also marked down to FREE! If you STILL want more, I have even more shorts on my Patreon!

And now, here’s the blurb, and the cover for Falcon (Masks #3)!

Keeping his boyfriend and his identities secret, fighting demons, and nearly losing Chayton have made college life bumpy for Avari Terran so far.

All he wants now is a quiet and uneventful spring break alone with Chayton.

Between Kaiden insisting on continuing to fight the demons, and Chayton insisting on continuing to be Falcon, it doesn’t seem that’ll happen.

When three people from Chayton’s past appear, everything is thrown further into chaos. New revelations will threaten to drive Avari and Chayton apart, and neither of them knows if they’ll be able to work it out this time.

Falcon is the third installment of Amara Lynn’s Masks and is the first novel length work in the series.

Add on Goodreads now!

Guest Post: Tundras, Travelers, and Other Travesties by Amara Lynn

It’s release day for Tundras, Travelers, and Other Travesties! Check out this guest post I wrote over on Queer Books Unbound for a little insight into the world of Tundras!

Queer Books Unbound

50396709._SY475_Synopsis

Eis has lived on a solar powered outpost in a tundra covered land all zir life.

After zir parents passing, Eis is left to maintain the outpost alone, struggling to do so between chronic pain flare ups, waiting for the day a traveler might come in need of a warm bed and a meal. A day Eis thinks might never come, until a mysterious craft crashes into one of the solar panels.

Eis never expected a traveler to come out of the craft, or for him to be so captivating and beautiful. Everything Eis knows could change with the coming of this traveler, and yet the greatest travesty would be never knowing what else is out there, beyond the tundra, beyond the skies.

Tundras, Travelers, and Other Travesties is a 5800 word solarpunk post-apocalyptic sci-fi short with a queer protagonist.

Amazon | B&N | Books2read | Gumroad | Goodreads
Release…

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