Candace Carrabus, Author

Inspiration can come from anywhere such as a song heard on the radio, a dream, reading an article or book, a walk in the woods, Pinterest. Sometimes it’s a combination of things, and sometimes ideas come, seemingly, out of thin air.

Raver, The Horsecaller: Book One is the first book I wrote, so I’ll start there. This one is easy. It was a dream. I used to keep my horse, Smirnoff, near a state park that had miles of trails we enjoyed riding on. Deep in the woods was an old structure of some kind. All that was left was a stone foundation. It provided the perfect place to practice jumping up and down embankments. Which we did. One night, I dreamed of riding Smirnoff down one of these drop-offs, only to land in a different world.

I was greeted by a group of people who were not outright hostile, but not exactly friendly, either. They took me to their leader. Now, this sounds like an old cartoon to me, and who knows what parts of my subconscious were dredged up as part of this dream! Anyway, their leader was straight out of Central Casting for alpha hero. Tall, dark and handsome. Intelligent. Tough but not unkind. He might have served me tea. We chatted. Something may have sparked between us, but I couldn’t stay there. They escorted me and my horse back to whatever strange portal or magic had brought me, and sent me back.

This dream stuck with me. The ideas and imagery didn’t evaporate the moment I woke up. While I’d written short stories and essays, I had yet to tackle a novel, but I wasn’t inspired to get started right away.

Around the same time, I finished reading the fourth book in the Outlander series The moment I closed it, I thought, I can do this. I went to my computer and started writing. The dream bubbled up out of my memory and formed the beginning of Raver. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The story flowed out of me. I wrote every waking moment I could spare and thought about the story constantly when not at the computer.

That initial draft was edited, of course, but the original concept–a woman rides her horse through a portal to another world–stayed. As I wrote, I constantly asked questions that had to be answered by the story. What if they didn’t let her go back? What if they needed her for something? What is wrong in this world that she can fix? What if she’s single and a relationship with the fearless leader is on the table? Or is it? What if…?

Where do you find inspiration? I’ll discuss my inspiration for another book next time. Until then, enjoy the ride!

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