Just had to share this . . .

Fun fact: I LOVE crystals and rocks. So I had to share this picture from my calendar . . . which is a calendar featuring pretty gardens, so why there’s a picture of a single, pretty crystal, I can’t imagine, but I love it all the same. 

Inspiration

I was one of those kids who collected rocks, bought gemstones, and then, as an adult, have gone rock hounding with my dad and grandpa, who love driving out into the desert. Rock hounding is the official term for going out and finding your own rocks, a term I only discovered because a former coworker’s husband was an avid rock hounder. There’s just something so satisfying about going out and finding something on your own, though I’ve never found something as spectacular as the crystal in this picture. Just obsidian and small bits of sunstone, but it was still really fun!

But back to crystals, there’s just something so fantasy-esque about them, in my mind. Maybe that’s only because stories put the idea there in the first place . . . or maybe crystals only ended up in stories because lots of people agree there’s something mystical seeming about them. 

My love of gemstones is partly why I have my genies come out of gems rather than lamps in my Genie Whisperer series. I put a fair bit of thought into the colors and types of gems I wanted, ultimately choosing sapphire, imperial topaz, aquamarine, green diamond, yellow diamond, ruby, and black opal for the main genies. The gems were largely chosen based on the color scheme I wanted the genies to have, since each genie’s hair, eyes, and clothes match the color of their gem. 

I also, admittedly, chose gems as genies’ homes rather than lamps because the main character ends up with seven genies (initially) and carrying around seven lamps would be incredibly cumbersome. It also would have looked strange to have multiple lamps on the book covers, like I do multiple gems, though I suppose I could have simply featured a lamp with different coloring for each book . . . but then I would have deprived my cover artist of digitally drawing each of those gems, which, ultimately, I believe was a fun experience for her.  

The post Just had to share this . . . first appeared on Nicole Eatough.