Guest Blogger Friday

Welcome to Eleni Konstantine, my guest blogger this week and author of the short story collection, Enchanted Realms .
Finding Inspiration by Eleni Konstantine
Enchanted Realms is my first short story collection, and my first release with Musa Publishing (http://musapublishing.com).
I wrote the stories long ago when I was studying writing by correspondence part-time and working as a librarian (funny, years later, I’m studying part time and am a writer and my alter-ego is a designer).
Part of this writing course was to submit 20 pieces of work to publishers or competitions. Two of the stories where ‘Angel Eyes’ and ‘Stormy Divide’ (then named Thom’s Guest).
I’ve never had too look to hard to find inspiration. I find it all around me. People, situations, books, movies, TV, music, photography, art - the world itself, they all can inspire different aspects.
For Stormy Divide , I entered a short story competition that had to be a max of 1000 words. Inspired by tales of Robin Hood, I pictured a forest and woodcutter. Initially my heroine was going to be on the run and had slipped back in time (love Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series). But she suddenly pulled some technology out of her ear, and it became set in the near future. Inspiration for that? Star Trek with the universal translator. I wanted a reason why she could understand the hero, and hey presto, it popped in my head – or the heroine’s ear to be more exact.  J
Angel Eyes came to me pretty fully formed. A woman obsessed by a man only in her dreams. I was actually on an inter-library loan run. I used to go to the local university and photocopy selected articles, and suddenly in the middle of finding a journal – the idea struck. Actually it was the eyes that got me first. Dark eyes. Eyes that I could understand why someone would obsess over. And they looked a little like this...
And no, it wasn’t the Angel character because I could see this character smiling as he does at the end.  (And there is another reason why the character is called Angel Eyes, so that’s coincidence).
Funny, I had totally forgotten about that as, of course, the character doesn’t look like the actor in my head. But it does show how something can spark off an idea.
I also wanted a heroine who was a loner, and her having an obsession of her dreams made perfect sense for her character. She’s brave in a way that’s quiet, and that’s not always shown as being strong.
And the final bit of inspiration – I had done a short course on dreams.
So there you have it – the inspiration behind Enchanted Realms . 

Blurb:
STORMY DIVIDE

Thom may be used to the dangers of the forest, but nothing has prepared him for this. When he stumbles across a woman dressed in weird clothing lying on the ground during a storm, he has no choice but to help her.

Ellie finds herself in another world, having traveled through time and space thanks to what Thom calls, The Rifts. The question is whether she will ever be able to find her way back, or if she will be stuck in this new world forever. Or if she will even want to go home…

ANGEL EYES

Vera’s dreams are haunted each night by a man she only knows as Angel Eyes. He feels more real to her than anything else in her life, including her fiancé. Vera must try to forget her childish dreams of soul mates and happily ever after… but are they really only dreams or can she find a way to be with Angel Eyes forever?
Leave a comment to go in the running to win a copy.
~Eleni J
Author Bio:
Eleni Konstantine is Fantasy and Paranormal fiction writer, and has had a number of shorts published. Her stories range from flash fiction to novels. She blames her mother for her writing bug because as a child she was given many books, including illustrated fairytales. That, and a love of Greek mythology, and Eleni was destined to become a writer. Eleni lives in Adelaide, Australia, with her family and feisty American Staffy.
Website: http://www.elenikonstantine.com/ Blog: http://eleni-konstantine.blogspot.com/