Yesterday was my son’s birthday party. We always hold his party in the summer because he was born on December 27th. Not a good time of year to have a party. The party yesterday was wonderful. My X’s neighbors all came over and my dear friend Shelli Stevens. They all brought their kids and we had blast…. My son, who is not quite 5 yet, could not wait to open his gifts so as soon as the last guest arrived he tore into them. He got a scooter, a croquet set, Disney’s Cars school supplies, a really cool noisy balloon launcher (the balloons ended up all over the place including on my neighbors roof!), A cowboy hat and boots, dinosaurs, a marble playing game, clothes, and a Loony Tunes DVD set.
The interesting part of the day was the cake. I ordered my son an ice cream cake. The cakes base color, made to look like grass, was green. Not thinking much about it. I set the cake out to thaw a bit as he opened his gifts and when my X brought the cake to the table he smiled and what do you know… green teeth and lips.
He had gotten some on his finger and licked it before coming to the table and the green food coloring was dark… so everyone ended up with green teeth and the kids of course being kids got it ALL over. On their shirts, on there hands… the dog even licked some off the patio and he too had a green tongue for awhile it was quite funny.
I arrived home last night with the task to finish writing a synopsis for my next book. I HATE writing a synopsis. I am not a plotter, and I never stick to them when I am actually writing the book, so I always feel like they are a waste of time.
But I found myself thinking of the green teeth and the party I just came from and how something so simple made people laugh and the laughter of the day made me want to add a bit of humor to this next book. Humor is something that I never do. I can’t write funny dialog, but I think… I maybe able to write funny situations. I ended up adding some silly scenes that happen to keep my hero and heroine apart. Maybe I will have to add a scene where my heroine sees greens in my hero’s teeth and is disgusted by it or laughs and offends him.
I don’t know…
Authors, how often do you use real events to inspire a scene in your stories? And readers do you like to know when a scene in a story was inspired by a real life event that the author experienced?
Yesterday was my son’s birthday party. We always hold his party in the summer because he was born on December 27th. Not a good time of year to have a party. The party yesterday was wonderful. My X’s neighbors all came over and my dear friend Shelli Stevens. They all brought their kids and we had blast…. My son, who is not quite 5 yet, could not wait to open his gifts so as soon as the last guest arrived he tore into them. He got a scooter, a croquet set, Disney’s Cars school supplies, a really cool noisy balloon launcher (the balloons ended up all over the place including on my neighbors roof!), A cowboy hat and boots, dinosaurs, a marble playing game, clothes, and a Loony Tunes DVD set. 