Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen. ~John Steinbeck
I fondly refer to my story ideas as plot bunnies,
so I guess you could say this is the bunny hutch.
Trolls
I
have always played pretend with my children. There are bridges on every
road leading away from our house, some large and some small and
rickety. Trolls seemed to live under them all. I would roll down the
windows and drive slowly so the kids could yell out, "clickety clack" as
we went and the troll would call back, "who's that crossing over my
bridge?"Only recently did I realize that I was creating imaginary friends for my children.
The first picture book is coming soon with illustrations by Davey Atkinson, a fabulous up and coming artist from England.
You can check out his work here.
Demons
A
museum encounter with a demonically carved piece of furniture led me
first to question my sanity and then to question the sanity of the
artist. What would inspire a carpenter to decorate their work with
something so vile? What would inspire a writer to take that plot bunny
home and feed it? My friends give me strange looks about this one. My
daughter thinks it would be a good young adult novel. We'll have to see.
Vikings
My
fascination with the Norse started long before the History Channel
introduced us to Ragnar and his friends. It even predates The 13th
Warrior, though I have to say that Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead
did inspire me to go back and read Beowulf. Viking travel, believe it or not, is part of Oklahoma's history; whether that tie-in is recent as part
of a hoax or is based in historical truth remains to be proven. Either
way, a number of stones inscribed with runes have been found
in Oklahoma, the most interesting by far being a 12 foot tall rock with
runic graffiti located in the southeastern part of the state. I have been to visit the Heavener Runestone in Glome's Valley more than once and find it interesting enough to spur a few ideas about what the Norse would have encountered as they traveled through the homelands of what would have been a still thriving Native American population. You hear authors talk about writing the "Great American Novel"? Well, this one is mine.
