If you haven’t seen the cover for my new novel Make It Last Forever yet, here it is: 
You can see a bigger version on my website along with the book blurb. But, I just wanted to share a few of the things that inspired me as I wrote the novel.
First there was the hero… He had to be the right hero. You see, Darius Rollins is a hot rapper/actor who has a desire to give back to his community after a tragedy strikes his family. So he has to embody the sexy-rapper-looks-good-with-his-shirt-off kind of hotness. And he’s a romance hero. So he has to be romance-hero-worthy… Sorry, no Fifty Cent here… But Common fit the bill perfectly!
Then I had to find the perfect leading lady to inspire my muse. You see Karen Williams is a community activist with her own youth center. She is a sister on a mission to save the community one child at a time. She wears her hair in multi-colored locs and has a political T-shirt collection that should be in the Guinness Book of World Records. Can you say, Fight the Power? The last thing she has time for is an affair with some rapper… Too bad fate has other ideas. I couldn’t find anyone that fit the bill perfectly for Karen, but singer Goapele offered some inspiration.
Then all I needed was some theme music and I was good to go. The song that got me pumped to write and fit some of the themes of the novel to a T was Common’s “The People.”
These are just a few of the inspirations I used to jump start my muse when it needed a boost.
Writers, do you ever use pictures or songs to jump start your muse?
Readers, do you envision famous people and cast them in leading roles for the books you read? Do you create soundtracks for the books you read as you read them?
I’m guilty of all of these.
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Gorgeous cover!!!!!
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Great cover. I can’t wait to read this. And I do in fact cast famous people in the novels I’m reading (and in the novels I’ve plotted but will probably never write).
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Gwen,
Awesome.
You’re back?? Glad to see ya. 
Love the cover, girl.
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Thanks ladies! I love the cover. I was complaining to my husband that I never get any sexy-man-chest on my covers for weeks. And then I got then I got this nice surprise. My husband was like, ‘now you can stop complaining.’ Of course less than a few hours later I mused, ‘I wonder why they have that guitar on there and why would they cover up all that sexy-man-chest with the title like that…’ To which the husband just shook his head, smiled and said, ‘I knew it. Never satisfied…’
And Tyhitia, I’m trying to get back in the groove of blogging. We’ll see…
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It’s the only way I go. Art is my muse.