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Sunday 9 November 2014

What's in a picture.

Where do you get your inspiration for stories? Do you ever see a wonderful photo and think, 'This would make a great book cover' Then all you have to do is write a book to fit it? That is what happened when I saw this picture,

This was before I wrote the final book in my RaumseyTrilogy. Set mostly in Canada, you might think the cover should be of that fine land, yet this is the road that eventually brings my characters home, the road they swear to each other that they will walk on together again one day. The road that led to their future, and back to their past. Yet in fact, it leads nowhere.




 Extract;                                                                       photo by www.cowiephoto.com



'Where does that road go?' she had asked of the clay and stone track that stretched across flat moorland and disappeared over a rise in the undulating landscape.

'Nowhere,' replied Davie, but he wasn't looking at the road, he was looking at her with a glint in his eye. The sun slid over his hair, highlighting the blond wisps that lifted in the breeze. She knew he'd barely listened to a word she said because he was impatient to get her between the haystacks behind Jessie's wee cottage.

She laughed and sprung away from him. 'It must lead somewhere. If I'm to live on this island, I need to know my way around, have I not?' She began to run down the road leading across the gradual slope of heather-covered moorland. The scent of heather-bells and sea-salt lay thick in the sunshine and the bog-cotton danced in the slight breeze. In the sky, seabirds wheeled and cried and from inland came the lonely hoot of a curlew. Distant  kittiwakes glided low over the pink sea-thrift and the firth lay flat and blue, reflecting the hills of the neighbouring island, Flotta.


'The Road to Nowhere' is now available in kindle. the paper back should be out by Christmas.

***

The book I am working on now is also inspired by a photograph.

The child is my grandaughter. (by the way, she came to no harm) Now for a title. This may be a back to front approach, and a new one for me, but I visualise the cover as it will be then attempt to write a book to fit it.

  Now what kind of book to write. A childrens' book?  A supernatural book? A horror? Ideas are racing round in my mind. And a title. Eagle Child, The day of the Eagle, The Curse of the Eagle.
As it happens, none of the above.

 Hopefully 'Eagle Dreams' will be out by the end of 2015.

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