Guest post and Book giveaway by Cat Larose
WinThis Book!
Color has a profound psychological impact on our lives. It’s used every day to stimulate our senses, excite us, calm us and, yes, induce us to buy products. Each color family has its own set of characteristics that trigger certain responses in us. With that in mind we should tread carefully when adding color to our space, especially our writing space.
There are trend colors, those colors du jour that we fall “in like” with. Be careful here because this relationship is a bit like infatuation. Color fatigue sets in quickly with trend colors. And before your know it, it’s time to move on to something else.
Then there are colors that last a lifetime – those are your favorite colors, the colors your intuition chooses. These are the colors that you feel close to and comfortable with. These are the colors that already appear in your closet and in the most comfortable rooms of your house.
When it comes to choosing color for any room, keep in mind that you don’t have to have an all red or all green room. Sometimes a dash of color is just enough to stimulate your creativity or get you in writing mode.
What follows is my take as a color marketer on color and how it can affect us as writers. Keep in mind that if you’re seriously engaged in the writing process, your focused and so you don’t see any color – it’s actually the absence of color, i.e. black type on a white page.
Red is a very stimulating color; it is the color of heat, passion and warning. It’s used a lot in fast food restaurants to move people in and out quickly. Use a dash of red to jump start your project.
Purple is a mystical color. It promotes healing and meditation. Leonardo da Vinci said that the color purple can increase meditative powers tenfold. A purple room is good for contemplating plot and structure.
Blue is a very relaxing and calming color. If you’ve put yourself under the pressure of deadlines, then blue is the color for you.
Green is Mother Nature’s favorite color. And just look how creative she is.
Yellow is a high-energy color that stimulates the mental process of thinking and activates memory. If you’re writing a memory a little yellow will go a long way.
Orange is a color you either love or hate. It’s also a high-energy color and encourages socialization. It might be a good color to use in a room where writers convene to discuss their work.
Whatever color you choose for your writing room it should be a color that enhances and promotes your personal well-being – as you feel it. Color like everything else in a room should disappear after a while as you engross yourself in your story. At that point your story’s own color will jump off of the page.
Cat is eager to chat with you and hopes you’ll have lots of questions for her!
One lucky commenter can win her book! But, post TWICE and you can win a whole Book Club Prize Pack!!
See details below…
On Monday,December 19 at the end of her WOW Blog Tour, Cat Larose will be awarding a special Book Club Prize ! The prize includes 10 copies of her memoir Any Color But Beige, a guide on how your book club can enjoy Any Color But Beige, a virtual visit from Cat Larose, and several other surprises. If you want to enter this contest just leave a comment after this post with the words “Book Club Contest” in the message. You can enter to win both the individual contest for one copy of Any Color But Beige and the Book Club Contest but you have to leave two different comments. Don’t forget to tell everyone who belongs to your Book Club to enter the contest!
For more about Any Color But Beige, and more chances to win, follow the rest of her tour!
Friday, December 9 @ Kritter’s Ramblings
Learn more about yourself and color with a fun quiz from color guru Cat Larose. You can also enter to win a copy of Cat’s memoir about embracing a colorful life: Any Color But Beige.
http://www.krittersramblings.com
Monday, December 12 @ From the TBR Pile
Are you brave enough to bare all? Your soul that is…to write memoir! Cat Larose writes about baring all and gives away a copy of her memoir Any Color But Beige.
www.fromthetbrpile.blogspot.com
Cat Larose
About the Author:
Catherine is one part hot blooded Latin and one part wild eyed Celt. She’s the oldest of seven children raised in a large Irish/Italian family – Catholic, of course. But family and friends think of her as the gypsy. She’s spent her life studying, living, and working all over the place. Cat is forever destined to wander incessantly as a person currently without country(CWC), or with no fixed address(NFA). Blessing or curse? Grandma V had her pegged long before she ever left Clevleand, Ohio when she gave her red-headed Italian granddaughter this advice , “All you need is a place to hang your hat.”
As she was traveling the world, Cat managed to acquire a husband. A rather beige husband. Not a good match considering the fact that Cat sells color for a living. What does that mean? When you go to a home improvement store and to choose a paint color, those little color chips are made by Cat’s company. They produce color chips for the automotive industry, cosmetic industry and of course your local Home Depot. While in Paris on business, Cat decided that life was too short to be beige. Her memoir is a record of her escape from the beige tinge of her marriage to the wild colors of singlehood.
Author’s Websites:
Catherine Larose’s book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9vh0IkE3YU&feature=related
Catherine Larose’s blog:
http://cafegirlchronicles.wordpress.com
Cat also has two fun videos you can check out:
Writers Inspired 
It’s interesting because I pondered the same thing about 18 months ago when I moved into my new house with my future-wife. I decided to paint my creative space two different shades of green (light green on three walls and a dark green accent wall where the window is). Mother Nature is indeed very creative, and I chose green because it reminds me of a good walk in the woods.
Mother Nature is the ultimate creative genius – green is an excellent choice! Cat
Why does it say anything but beige, would a light orange or yellow count as beige? What about colors like white, black, and brow? And for any of the colors above, is it generally better to be a dark shade or a lighter shade of that color. (BTW: I’m a screenwriter who can seem to get inspired, and gets overwhelmed and ends up wasting time on YouTube rather then writing cause I feel like I don’t have the energy to write. What do you guys think would be a good color for me?) Thanks! ❤
Oh, I love this. I’m trying to figure out how to decorate my new home and especially my study. Luckily I love green. As my desk and shelves are black, I can already see the space with green accents and plants.
I’m glad that you talked about how blue can be a relaxing color and would work well with deadlines. I’m thinking of repainting my room before my final exams and I’m glad that I was able to read your article. It might be a good idea to check different shades of blue first before hiring painting contractors.
Thank you for this post! It helped me get some color theory out of the way. Keep going!