Living Life and Writing Fiction
The number one question I get about the book is how much it is based on real life people and on my travel experiences.
The Summer We Came to Life is set in Honduras, where I lived for six months in 2006. It depicts best friends dealing with the death of a fourth, as their parents share tales of love and loss, before the story takes a supernatural, quantum metaphysical twist. The book is definitely fiction, but was inspired by my travels, and by friends and family in real life.
The seed for the novel came from a discussion with my best friend in Honduras – the meeting of Baby Boomer parents and their adult daughters. Then I barely survived two near death drowning experiences, white-water rafting in Honduras and on vacation in El Salvador, and I had my motivation – exploring the deeper mysteries about love and loss and mourning.
Then, add to these factors the crazy thing that happens to writers as we go about our day. I collect little pieces, like a shag carpet collects crumbs – something hilarious a friend said, something hurtful I can’t make sense of, a conversation I overhear at a restaurant. The pieces glom onto a central story idea I can’t escape. In the case of The Summer We Came to Life, it was a combination of my own brush with death and the ever-presence of my childhood best friend as I approached thirty and had all these big life decisions to make.
I believe writing is unavoidably tied to our stage in life. In my twenties, I wrote wild stories about the single life (that I thank my lucky stars will never see the light of day!), this book was very much about the modern woman turning thirty, and I’m sure the books I write in my forties will be about very different central themes.
Isn’t writing fiction one of the most fascinating psychological processes of the human mind? It encompasses worldview, cultural bias, echoes and obsessions of memories, rites of passage, inspiration of the Muse, the zeitgeist, and collective unconscious. And still it is a manifestation of a completely unique creation by the imagination of a single human being on earth.
How’s that for a job description?!
So, this summer, please check out The Summer We Came to Life and journey through my memories and my ‘what-ifs’ with me to four countries through two generations, and even parallel universes.
Big thank you to Deborah for stopping by and please visit her website for more details!
