I’d started a different post when I received a note from a reader that sent me in a different direction. That ever happen to you? Start one idea and a better idea comes along?
Anyway, the reader (and you’ll recognize yourself) wanted to know "how in the world Emma from Obsession couldn’t like chocolate chip cookies?" She thought everyone liked CC cookies. After I answered her, I…oh, do you want to know why Emma doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies, too? It’s because I don’t like them. I used to like them until I made a batch and ate every one of them right after they came out of the oven. Made me sick, therefore CC cookies no longer appeal to me.
Anyway, it got me to thinking about how many of my traits and/or experiences go into my books. Quite a few, actually.
Take my very first book, Shadows of the Past. In the storyline, there's a safe room where runaway slaves were hidden until they could be smuggled out through a tunnel to the caves near the Tennessee River and then up north. That came straight from a friend's home in Maine I visited a year before I wrote the book. The house had been built in the late 1700s as an inn and tavern. There were even holes from Redcoat bullets during the American Revolutionary War.
Walking down the same stairs (with their original wood) made goosebumps on my arms. She showed me the room, no bigger than an 8'x8' and the tunnel that provided an escape route to the dock where a boat waited to take the escaped slaves to Canada.
In Silence in the Dark, the opening scene came from a sad experience with a childhood friend who was killed. It was a unique way to honor her memory.
Sometimes the stories didn't come from my experiences, but from something I'd always wanted to do. Like Justice Buried, set at the Pink Palace in Memphis. I spent so many Sunday afternoons there that the museum felt like a second home. The heroine, Kelsey Adams, is a rock climber, something I've always wanted to do, but never got the opportunity. Well, I lived my dream through Kelsey! And you know what? Rock climbing isn't on my bucket list any longer. :-)
Next time you read one of my books and wonder why the heroine does or doesn't do something, it just might be because it's a reflection of the author.
If you have any questions or just want to make a comment, do so. I'm giving away a copy of Obsession to one randomly drawn questioner. Be sure to leave you contact information so I can contact you.