Welcome, Author Keyleigh Malcom!

Today I am thrilled that author Keyleigh Malcom is visiting and talking about inspiration.

Where do you find inspiration?

Inspiration is one of the most curious aspects of writing. What exactly causes it? Why can't we find it when we really need it? Like when a deadline is looming. LOL

My 3xtasy Lake series was inspired by a hike through Algonquin Park and then finding that there is a lake in the south west corner called Wolf Lake. Like that wasn't divine intervention since I was brainstorming a shifter series. Suddenly I found myself in a the middle of a small town called Ecstasy Lake, which was a safe haven for all sorts of shifters and magical creatures

The Midnighter Seductions series was obvious inspired by the impending doom of December 21, 2012. The day the world was going to plunge into a series of cataclysmic disasters all because an ancient Aztec calendar ended. Inspiration is fuelled by "what if" and that series was a direct result of my looking for something less depressing than the end of the world as we knew it.

I've listened to music and stared at clouds. My life is cluttered with hundreds of little notepads tucked in everywhere. My car, purse, nightstand, knitting bag, work. I've written ideas on the sides of cardboard boxes, napkins and receipts.

Because, that's how important inspiration is.

It usually hits at completely inopportune moments. Like when you’re sitting in a car listening to music while your daughter is putting resumes in a bunch of stores. Yup, that happened to me. I'd been working on a book for the Black Hills Wolves series and I had two characters who were stating to develop in my head and I couldn’t' figure out how to get them together and make it realistic. (Well, as realistic as the perfect happily ever afters you can find in a romance novel.)

So I'm sitting in my car, jotting down physical attributes about each character in my notebook, brainstorming about what might happen in the story when it suddenly hits me. My heart skipped a beat and then pounded for a second while everything unfolded in my brain. I understood WHY these two souls were meant to be together and WHY no one else would match. That's the trick of Mates, it's not enough to have this magical connection, not enough for me anyways. I want more, there has to be a reason why this person is the Yin to their Yang or the Peanut Butter to their Jam. However you want to phrase it.

Here I have two men who have been living a life without feeling like they have a home. And I don't mean a physical one; I mean the one that you have in your heart. That is what Seth needed to learn is that Home is heartfelt not physically felt and Josh needed to feel like he had a place in the world with someone who wanted to be his home. Josh is a little needy but I adore him, he's a sweetheart.

That's the part of writing that keeps me coming back book after book. I'll never jump out of a plane or swim with sharks. This is my adrenaline rush. The excitement of a first date that's going better than you ever imagined and you start to think, maybe this is "the one". It's that fresh and new excitement that I strive for in my writing and I hope I manage to convey to the readers. I want them to experience that excited rush too.

Kayleigh Malcom (aka Corinne Davies) is a firm believer that all love is beautiful and everyone deserves a Happily Ever After....well except for those involved with cancelling Firefly. She's still holding a grudge over that one. 

Sticking with one genre is a talent she hasn't achieved yet and can be found creating worlds as normal as our own or as fantastic as her dreams. Her characters have to face real life challenges, as many of us do, but love always finds a way to conquer all. 

A social media junkie, she can be found haunting many different sites and loves to hear from her readers.