Where it All Comes From

Like most other authors, I'm asked where my inspiration comes from. All around me is usually my answer. Most of the time I'm hit when I least expect it. One time comes to mind when I was still a pre-teen. My class had gone on a field trip to a wax museum (on a double decker bus no less!!). Now wax museums are always an odd place to me. They usually seem so life-like and freak me out a little. But this particular museum had a section at the end that was like a house of horrors. Even though we were just kids, our chaperons didn't give us a choice to go in or not - you went regardless because you had to stick with the group (in today's society, someone would probably get sued for that...). I didn't really want to go, but had no choice. In I went. To be honest, with very dim lighting, walls, ceiling and floor all painted black is was down-right spooky. I kept my eyes closed for most of it and chose to hold on to the back of my friend's shirt to get me through. Near the end though, I bucked up and relaxed a little and actually saw some of the displays.

One of which was a man who looked perfect and dashing in a crisp tuxedo and stood over a woman in a elegant black cocktail dress. The dress was torn in places and she was suspended on two metal hooks around her mid-section. It wasn't gruesome in a bloody sense, there was very little blood on the display, only on her skin near where the hooks disappeared into her. Something about it stayed with me, for whatever reason. I wasn't disturbed by it, nor horrified. I forgot about it as soon as I stepped outside with my friends and never thought it again.

At least until two years ago when it became the inspiration for a scene I wrote in my newest release, Blood Fever.

I lifted my head to see why I couldn't move. To my horror, I saw an oversized steel clamp suspended from the ceiling on thick black iron links. The clamp tongs flared out wide from the bottom link and speared into my sides. If I shifted my weight slightly, I could feel myself pivoting on points that met somewhere deep inside of me. My healing abilities kept me alive despite the hook and I realized every time I moved, I reopened the wounds. Each time I took a breath, my weight on the suspended hook shifted and I had my explanation as to why I felt as if the pain would never go away.

The pale blue cotton t-shirt I'd been wearing was now a dark red color. My arms and hands were coated with streaks of dried blood as well and I could only imagine what the rest of me looked like. I felt as if I'd stepped into a bad horror movie or some freak show exhibit.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how authors get their inspiration. ;^)