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My InspirationsSometime your muse will strike when you least expect it. This page is dedicated to the things which inspire me to write. It's just a fun little thing I thought I'd include so that my readers might see where I get my story ideas from. Maybe it will inspire another future romance writer some day! Click on a story title to read bout how the idea was conceived. The Lady's Boatman The Locktender's Daughter The Fireland's Bride Captive Hearts Ashes to Ashes The Last Sorceress Battle of the Mages
The Lady's BoatmanWhile I'm not certain how much farther I want to edit this one (It was my first completed manuscript and not as strong a story as The Locktender's Daughter), this one was inspired many years ago when I worked in Independence, OH. I didn't have my driver's license at the time and my husband would drop me off early at the McDonalds at the corner of RT. 21 and Rockside. I just started reading historical romances and absolutely loved the way they could carry off to another time and place. I also use to walk along the remains of the old Ohio & Erie Canal towpath. I would imagine how it was when back when the mules towed the boats along the towpath I was walking on. One day, inspiration hit me. Why couldn't I write a historical romance set in that era? The fact that the boats floated along the murky waters so slowly would certainly provide enough time for a hero and heroine to get to know each other and fall in love. I wrote a basic sketch of the story along with character sketches. Then I put it aside when I came up with an idea for a dreadfully awful Pirate Romance ( I just found the hand-written first draft and it was bad!). When I got bored with the pirate thing, I put it aside in the same binder as my sketches for The Lady's Boatman. Seven years later, the unthinkable happened and my husband lost his job. I just recently had a baby and we both panicked. The idea of putting my son into day care was out of the question so I began to think of something I could do at home. I came across the old binder, found my old plot and character sketches, signed up for an online romance writing support group, and began to write. By the time I was 1/2 way through, my husband found another job but I was too involved with the characters and story to stop writing. I was thrilled when I completed it! It was the first story I ever finished and will always hold a close place in my heart!
The Locktender's DaughterThe Locktender's Daughter was inspired while I was doing research for The Lady's Boatman. This one had an intriguing muse. His name was Jim Brown and he was a real-life counterfeiter who lived in Boston Township, OH in the mid 1800's. I first learned a little bit about Jim and his antics in a leaflet I located in the Independence Library about the history of Independence. While he was an interesting fellow, I knew I couldn't work him into The Lady's Boatman. Then I saw an exhibit on him in the Cuyahoga Valley Historical Museum. At the time, I was thinking about doing a sequel entitled, The Locktender's Daughter. In my original idea, the daughter of the hero and heroine from The Lady's Boatman rescues a confederate war prisoner from the canal. I couldn't really get excited about the idea because I didn't see room for much conflict. After I saw the exhibit on Jim and learned he was also a sheriff for Boston Township, I started playing the "What if game." I wondered how a man could go from one side of the law to the other and started thinking about the hero in the Locktender's Daughter. "What if he was forced to give up counterfeiting to provide for a nephew who's parent's had died?" I thought. "And what if the heroine's first love was murdered by my counterfeiter villain? She vows revenge but rescues the nephew from the canal when he gets caught trying to stop his uncle from committing a crime and ends up getting blamed for it." Thus the seeds were planted for my current WIP and so far, I love it. In fact, I think it's the best thing I've ever written. So thank you Jim. Thank you for living such an interesting life so long ago and for inspiring me to write an interesting villain :-)!
The Fireland's BrideI've always liked the idea of doing a historical romance which deals with the early history of Ohio. At first, it was going to be titled the Western Reserve Bride until I found out about this site. Like the Western Reserve, the Firelands were lands set aside for revolutionary war veterans living in Connecticut. The firelands however, were lands specifically meant for the towns which were burned to the ground by the British. They were the lands to the west of the reserve and close to Lake Erie. I've always loved the lake so setting a novel close to it seemed like a good idea to me. The first draft of this one is completed but I got stuck while editing so it's currently on hold while I work on my other projects.
Captive HeartsMy early Ohio short story that was featured in the Feb. Issue of A Hint of Seduction E-zine was inspired when I was browsing around Ohio History Central one day. I read about the destruction of Fort Sandusky and all about Bouquet's expedtion. But the story I found the most intriguing was the story of two Wyandot Indian prisoners who fell in love and married while being held captive. I decided to combine all three stories and came up with Captive Hearts :-).
Ashes to AshesMy friend, Stephanie inspired me to write this one because of an excellent page she put together on The Lakeview Elementary School fire. Though it's sort of hold until after NANO, Ashes to Ashes tells the tale of Meghan and Tony. Two childhood sweethearts who were separated during the school fire. Tony always thought Meghan died in the fire, until he saw her ten years later, standing in front of a memorial for the children who perished in the fire. It's a difficult story to tell because there's so much emotion tied to the real events that I'm basing the story on. That's part of the reason why I decided to The Last Sorceress for NANO and get back to work on AtoA after I'm at least done with the first draft of TLS.
The Last SorceressI've actually had this idea for awhile but it was stuck in the back of my brain until my friend, Chris encouraged me to dust the cobwebs off of it and get to work on it. It'll be my NANOWRIMO project this year. I loved the old eighties movie, The Last Starfighter. It's a story of a teenager who gets whisked off to space to fight aliens after getting a high score on a video game. I thought it was such a cool idea and then I started thinking it would be fun to write about an ordinary divorced mom who gets recruited to fight in another world after playing one of those role-playing online fantasy games. At first my hero was going to be a handsome sorcerer or a brave knight but then I though, "Blah, that is so booring!" Anyway, I decided a beauty and a beast romance would be more fun so my hero became an ogre :-). My ogre hero, Dazzart poses as a human by the name of Glenn Bowman in our world and created a computer game to recruit heroes from our world to fight in his world. He organizes conventions and online tournaments to bring the gamers to his world. I had a blast writing this story and have recently submitted it it to Samhain Publishing. Battle of the MagesI guess the hero I almost picked for The Last Sorceress, the High Sorcerer, Olorin, ended up being my inspiration for this story. Olorin kept trying to break my single-mom turned mighty sorceress and ogre apart. I eventually realized that he was just lonely because he lost his first wife and needed a heroine of his own. I dreamed up a feisty fairy heroine for him and I'm working hard on getting them towards that happy ending. Once I do, I'll post a blurb and excerpt.
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