Sunday, March 30, 2014

Chaos and Creativity

Life is a little crazy in the Aires' house. We are dejunking, painting, replacing carpet, yada yada, getting the house ready to put up for sale. Twin A takes off a week after her sophomore year of college ends for Maine, where she is interning  at a summer stock theater. Twin B will have the teal twin-car all to herself and is working as a vet tech before taking off for college again in August. And sometime during all that we are hoping to sell the homestead and head south.

So what better time to get a great idea for a new series? Well, I have to sit down sometime! I always have good ideas when I am cleaning. I think because cleaning is making order out of chaos. Which is like writing a story.

I've been doing character sketches, plotting, gathering pictures. Thinking, brewing.

I once taught school in a tiny ranching community in eastern Montana. It was remote, and I was on the highway! There were ranches and small schools way out there, off the paved roads. People there still had soddys--maybe just for a fishing cabin, but they had them!

What if some magical types homesteaded out there, back in the Wild West days? It's a good place to hide, with the bad lands and gullys, rock outcrops and small stands of trees. Not to mention the dirt roads have bentonite in the soil, which means the mud cakes on your shoes, or on your car tires, until you loose the shoe or the car quits rolling. Schools there have mud days, not snow days. Lots of privacy to work your magic, or run around as a shifter. Freedom to raise your little witches in peace.

So that is the starting point, an intriguing 'What if?'

2 comments:

Veronica Scott said...

I like your what-if! Brings lots of plot ideas to mind...

Lisa Oliver said...

Wow so many ideas, and I love your details about the mud :)