For the next year, I’m dedicating the second week of every month to highlighting local settings found in my novel, Gatekeeper.
To start this blog series, it only makes sense to show you where the story began: with a dream about a cliff. Specifically, Lookout Point in Paradise, CA.
In the third grade, I dreamed my sister and I fell off the edge of a cliff near our bus stop into a secret land filled with good werewolves and evil mermaids. This secret land later became the inspiration for Orendria. If you want to read my first attempt as an eight-year old to write the story, go to my Q & A page and look for question 2, under Orendria or click here.
Check out this cliff . . .
How could anyone doubt werewolves clad in tanned-leather pants and feathers circlets live among the buttes of this valley?
Here’s the bus stop:
Not much has changed in thirty years.
This old, untended orchard behind the bus stop is where the cliff sucked my sister and I into a fantastical world.
You may have noticed significant terrain missing from Lookout Point. In Gatekeeper, Weiland Wood borders the cliff. As you can see above, in the picture of Lookout Point, there’s no forest.
But it does exist on the other side of Paradise. Here’s the canyon inspiration for Weiland Wood:
Northern California provides such a beautiful backdrop for my stories. I have an endless supply of inspiration right out my front door. How about you? How do you pick where your stories take place? Or if you don’t write, what’s your favorite setting from a book?
Join me next month as I take you on a picture tour of Bidwell Mansion. I’ll show you all the rooms where Becca, Gabe, and Sachee stood.
If I haven’t highlighted your favorite setting in Gatekeeper yet, make sure to tell me in the comments!
