One of the most asked questions of writers is where we get our ideas.  For me, the answer is simple.  Whatever I see is fair game.   But I tend to see things in a different light.  I’ve been told I have a fertile imagination; this is a gross understatement.  Part of a writer’s craft is to spin what they observe into stories.

Here’s an example:  In his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost penned the line “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”  In a simple sentence he created a powerful image.  With his choice of adjectives, the line allows me to see the beauty and also the peril of woods in general.   There are more possibilities to the meaning but I’m not here to critique Frost’s poetry, merely to suggest how ideas may form.

Now insert me, with my active imagination fueled by decades of reading, into a setting.  Let’s say I’m sitting on a dock, on a small lake, and across the lake from me is a large, wooded area.  Uh oh.  The trance-like look comes over me, the mind is whirling, the rest of the world takes a backseat while my thoughts hum.

What if a small group of religious men became disenchanted with their religion?  What if they left their country of origin and created their own religious sect?  What if they built their own small, successful community and cohabited peacefully for fifty years?  What if they disappeared without a trace?

So, what if?  Well, their once proud compound of buildings falls into disarray.  The land reclaims itself.  The decaying group of buildings becomes overrun with an assortment of growth.  The once-cleared wooded area seeks revenge.

Lovely + dark and deep = mystery.

Welcome to my blog.  Follow me on my journey to tell the story of The Quarry’s Child.