I’s like to welcome another fellow Liquid Silver Author, Lea Griffith, to Muse Wednesday.

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Thank you so much, Monette, for having me here today. This was a pretty easy post for me. When you touched base with me about who influenced my writing, my answer was immediate and I appreciate the opportunity to share with you and your readers.

Style is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “a distinctive manner of expression”. Whether in writing or speech, everyone has a particular tone or way of conveying their thoughts that is considered to be genuine to whom they are. I’m a writer, an author and that whole ‘I am an island that sprouted from the loins of the Written Word’ is a nice thought. To think I may possibly posses the goddess-like abilities in my writing makes me a bit giddy. But the quintessential reflection that every writer is inimitable and magically received his or her very own distinct style from the Style Fairy is a misnomer. A nice, deluded thought, mind you, but not the truth.

The simple truth is that we are, each of us who put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, a profusion of styles, a true blending of everything we’ve ever read or heard, seen or felt. The beauty of our writing is that we have had opportunity to read what others have written or hear what others have spoken and we have conjoined those into something that is specific to who we are. Our own experiences come into play, mesh with those other manners of expression and form something infinitely beautiful and incredibly unique—our own distinctive manner of expression, our style. So it’s a little bit nurture over nature in my opinion. You may have sprung form the Written Word’s loins but if you haven’t experienced life, and other writer’s works, then you are at a serious disadvantage. The Style Fairy didn’t sprinkle anything over your head to grant you beautiful tone in your writing. Your sense of humor wasn’t in there either. Your pain, your joy, your heartache and your love of life was absent as well. That fairy dust ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

And this leads me to right now. I’m a new author but not a new writer. I’ve been writing all my life though only in novel form for about five years. I am also an avid reader. I started stealing my mom’s romance books at a very young age and was reading romance before I knew what it was. It was these first stories that impacted my love of romance and ultimately have influenced my writing style. The authors of those books, their tones and ways with the written words drew me in and kept me engaged. And I have one author in particular that I give full credit to immersing me in my own desire to write: the incomparable Kathleen Woodiwiss. The Wolf and The Dove was a story so full of all things beautifully written, to the point that I’ve read it yearly since I was sixteen and every time I find something new between the pages. Woodiwiss’ ability to bring me into those character’s lives, to feel their joy and sorrow, to force me to root for them even when I didn’t want to speaks to my writer soul.

That’s what I want to do with my words. Place them together in an order that draws my reader in and doesn’t let them go. I want their minds and hearts to be mine for the time they are between the pages of my books. I want to own them—just like Woodiwiss owns me.

I’m sure my style will grow and mature. By nature, I love to laugh and try to find humor in just about everything. I try to bring that to my stories. But I also love deeply and feel pain the same way. Woodiwiss influenced my style. I think she may well have sprung from the loins of the Written Word, she’s just that good in my opinion. But I am not Woodiwiss, I am Lea. As long as I can get a shot of adrenaline from reading my heroes, I will continue to be inspired to grow in my own style.

And I will write. This I promise you.

Bio:

Lea Griffith began sneaking to read her mother’s romance novels at a young age. She cut her teeth on the greats: McNaught, Woodiwiss, and Garwood. A firm believer that love makes the world go round, she still consumes every romance book she can put her hands on, but now she writes her own.

Lea lives with her husband and three teenage daughters in rural Georgia. Two dogs, a cat, and a beta fish named Coddy George complete a family that is always in motion. When not working at the EDJ, she’s usually at her keyboard, using every spare second to write. Shifters, artificial intelligence, and gene splicing, oh my! Nothing is off-limits when it comes to her writing.

Her debut release, Retrieval, a Contemporary Sci-fi Romance, is available at Liquid Silver Books.