Where our ideas come from--you get what you ask for!

I agonized for a good long while about what to write in this blog. I’m pretty good about doing articles for other authors about the writing life, but what can I say to readers besides gush and sound like an idiot when I start out with “Gee, I’m so glad you liked my stuff!” (That’s the eloquent, public speaker coming out in me)

Well, what I came up with after starting and trashing two articles that were entirely too “author-oriented” is a bit of a story about an experience I had. A lot of people ask me where I get my ideas (both for my Keira Ramsay stories and my mainstream stuff). In both cases I tend to write about the paranormal, and after you read this, I bet you’ll understand why. Even tho Halloween is almost two weeks gone, this one is sure to give you goosebumps…and I assure you it’s true!

I lived in Yosemite National Park when I was in my early twenties, and it’s a very spiritual place…lots of little hidey holes where spirits tend to stick around, for whatever reason.

Not to long after I arrived, my buds and I decided to go on a spirit walk. I took this concept with a grain of salt, figuring they were a bunch of flakes, but they were my flakes, and hell, there was nothing else to do that night.

We drove to Tunnel View, a big turnout at the end of a long tunnel that brings people into Yosemite Valley from the southernmost entrance. It had snowed earlier in the week, so the whole area was blanketed by this gorgeous, pristine field of white. Because it was winter, we were the only folks in the parking lot. Turns out that was a good thing.

Since I’d driven, I got to sit on the hood of my nice warm car and ruminate while my friends went tromping around in the snow, freezing their booties off. Now remember, there’s no one else in the area but us, so what happened next completely freaked me out.

I was sitting there, warm as you please, when I felt a presence (there’s no other word for it…it was just there) settle onto the hood of the car next to me. I knew, just knew, that this was an eight-year-old named Danny. In that flash of a few seconds I also knew that he’d died in the tunnel. He’d been riding in a white van with his family, been involved in a head-on collision and was the only one who perished. It’s not like any words were spoken…the knowledge was just suddenly in my head—like an epiphany.

To say I was taken aback is a smidge of an understatement, so I just sat there, frozen and wondering if someone had slipped something into my soda back at the dorm.

Danny didn’t leave. Instead, he just stayed there with me, not saying anything. I didn’t get anything more about his life or death, nor did I get any sadness. It was almost as if he was in some kind of limbo, and wanted someone to hang out with.

My friends finally came back, cranky as hell because they hadn’t “found” anything. Danny left before they could sense or feel him, and I thought that was the end of that. I pawned it off as me being goofy or perhaps a bit of mass hypnosis, since my buddies so desperately wanted to find something. I thought I must have read something in the local paper about an accident in the tunnel and was making things up. Needless to say, I didn’t mention it to my friends. It was too personal, too private.

But as you’ve probably guessed, that’s not the end of the tale. A few days later I left the Valley to go shopping, and as I approached Tunnel View, I felt him again, settling into the passenger seat and just hanging out there. His presence was cold…noticeably so in the warm interior of the car. As soon as I hit the end of the tunnel, he was gone. Again, I thought it was my overactive imagination…until I actually had someone riding shotgun with me a few weeks later.

The second Danny settled in for the ride, my passenger (a total non-believer) started to shiver and said it felt like someone was watching her.

That sealed it for me. The next weekend I went down to Mariposa, my hometown and the closest burg, and asked the folks in the newspaper morgue if they knew anything about it. It took a little while, but since I’d gone to high school with a bunch of them, they kept digging until they found it. Danny had indeed been eight, the sole fatality in a head-on collision, riding in a white van with his family…in 1966, the year before I was born.

Yeah, gave me the willies too. The people at the newspaper thought I was a whack job of the highest order, but starting that day, I became a true believer.

Danny rode with me every time I drove out of the Valley until I left four years later. When I moved, I made sure I left by that exit, even though it added an hour to my drive time. I had to say goodbye.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

So while this may have seemed like a loooong, rambling story with no real purpose (or sex), keep this in mind…when you ask an author where they get their stories, beware! Sometimes the answer is weirder than you expected!

Before I check out, here’s today’s prize…if you blog with me today, I’ll pick one winner for a $10 gift certificate to Fictionwise!