Origins

I find inspiration everywhere, but mostly from my own experiences.  I try to take advantage of every opportunity presented to me, and that has taken me around the world.  So, who am I?

I am...
...human, though I suspect I may be a fraction Lilliputian.
...a wife of one and mother of two.
...a person with mitochondrial disease.
...a person with narcolepsy.
...a scientific pantheist.
...a classically trained musician, currently a percussionist.
...a writer.
...a crafter specializing in crocheting and sewing.
...a reader of everything in sight.
...a vegan.
...a milk donor.
...afraid of horses and large dogs.
...allergic to cherries.
...a former hockey and soccer player.
...a sci-fi and fantasy geek.
...an engineer by education and chemist by (former) occupation.
...a horrible housekeeper.

Oh, the places I've been!  The most amazing and inspiring locations I've ever visited are...
...the forests of northeastern Michigan at night after a heavy snow with the aurora dancing above the pines.
...a ninja training school near Kyoto.
...Lake Biwa
...a vineyard in rural France.
...Paris at 5am.
...the mountains above Grenoble.
...Luxembourg City.
...the Black Forest.
...Munich.
...the site of a former concentration camp in northeastern Germany.
...Giant's Causeway.
... Edinburgh.
...Stonehenge at Midsummer.
...Trinity College, Dublin.
...the Ozarks.
...the mountains of West Virginia before dawn on a foggy morning.
...so far from civilization in South Dakota that the Milky way was phenomenally clear.
...Devil's Tower.
...the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich.
...Roatan, Honduras.
...the slums of Belize City.

My books have their own origins.  The Crystal Lattice was started on a whim during the summer when I was twenty-one.  I put it away when the next semester started and didn't go back to it for several years.  I was working a mind-numbing insurance job and was suddenly inspired by a Muse song.  I finished the book and one of my coworkers was my first reader and critic.  Echoes of Oblivion began as a short narrative within The Crystal Lattice, a cautionary tale told by the narrator.  I read it to a friend, who said, "You should expand that.  It would be a cool story."  What started out as a short story became a 300,000+ word trilogy written over six months and I blame it all on my friend.  I edited it a couple of times, put it away for a year, and then did a final edit after I finished Mayfly Requiem.  Now, that one is my beast.

I was writing Absolution (which has been an ongoing problem for three years now because it's been interrupted by other inspirations and babies), and had a dream about one of my Echoes characters.  I picked up a notebook and started writing.  And writing.  I filled two large notebooks with 2500 years of Maloran history, most of it written during my lunches at work (I was now working for an environmental testing company) or late at night.  I put it away for a while to edit Echoes, and then typed the whole nasty thing out while I was home on maternity leave.  I started working on Absolution again after a round or two of edits, but when I was really getting into it, I hit pregnancy brain fog and fatigue and haven't picked it back up yet.  And I have to wait a little bit longer.  I've decided to revise and add to The Crystal Lattice, so now I need to find the time to do it.  More late nights and sleepy days ahead, a real adventure when I have two little ones to chase after.