colonial repast

There's something about this picture that I love. It was taken aboard an 18th-century ship and has a quality about it that doesn't look quite real. Things like these can really jump start your imagination. Before I started this 3rd book, The Locket, I kept seeing a shadowy figure of a soldier at a distance. Only I didn't know what to do with him! He just kept reappearing in my mind till I got used to the idea that he might possibly be the hero in my next book. At first I thought he was just regular army. Then I noticed he was wearing a uniform so he became a Continental officer. I was a bit dismayed because I knew very little about that aspect of 18th-century life. But my Colonel McLinn has taught me a lot:) And military life in that time period was not dull. Mix in a few spies, malarial fever, swords and muskets, black powder, a spinster of 29, and a mute child and you have quite a recipe.

A book begins with falling in love. You lose your heart to a place, a house, an avenue of trees, or with a character who walks in and takes complete possession of you. Your imagination glows, and there is the seed of your book. -Elizabeth Goudge

The winners for a copy of Courting Morrow Little and Donald Maass's The Fire in Fiction will be posted Monday. Anyone who has left a comment in the last week has been entered:) Have a wonderful weekend!