Imagination

Imagination. Lucky are those of us who are gifted with the power to imagine, to create pictures inside our heads, to find inspiration in ordinary or extraordinary events. I'm posting a picture that appeared in our local newspaper. (photo credit Mike Szaszik)

I was so enchanted by the picture I got in touch with the photographer to ask for permission to post it on my blog and the Goddess blog. Mike graciously consented.

It's a lucky shot, Mike says. He snapped the picture of a barn fire. Local fireman herded the ducks to safety. But that's too simple. Too mundane.

When I viewed the picture I thought, this is a fairy tale. Those are little people whose village is being destroyed by a wicked wizard and they are powerless. All they can do is stand in awe as the flame devour everything they love. But ... and good fairy tales have a happy ending. I leave it to you to imagine the ending.

My imagination had fun playing with the picture and how it created a whole drama inside my head. But that's the way writers are inspired to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. My current release, Isabelle's Diary, was inspired by a scene I witnessed in Llandrindod Wells, Wales. My husband and I had stopped for a cup of coffee in a cafe. Seated alone at a window table was a young girl dressed in black. She was drinking a Coke and kept glancing over her shoulder as if waiting for someone. That was all I needed to kick start my story.

The young woman in Isabelle's Diary is dressed in sombre Victorian black. She is weeping over a diary. Why? Who was she? That's the story question.

Want to know more? Read Isabelle's Diary. I am muddling through a contemporary romance set in Cornwall. Yes, I got the idea when we visited Cornwall and came across an unusually beautiful garden that seemed out of place on the rugged coast line.

Does the picture I posted speak to you?

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