Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Guest Post: The Inspiration for The Georgia Corbins and Death of a Waterfall By Kara Leigh Miller

THE GEORGIA CORBINS:
My husband had turned on one of those all music all the time channels on cable. I don’t remember what song was playing, but there was a still photograph of a tractor in the middle of a hay field with a man leaning up against it and a women staring at him. As it often does, my mind began to wander and I started asking questions. Why was the man in the field? What’s with the tractor? Why was the woman watching him? Did they know each other? Were they lovers? Friends? Family? What were they doing? Talking? Having an argument? Breaking-up? The longer I stared at that picture, the more questions I had. And I knew there was only one way to get all the answers…I had to tell a story.
But, where the heck did I begin?
Well, I let that picture and my questions have free reign in my brain for the rest of the night, and just as I was getting ready to fall asleep, a scene started to play in my head: a young girl sitting on the roof of her house, staring out across a hay field, watching two shirtless guys loading hay onto a wagon. She was sad, confused, angry, and in love. I knew I'd found my story.
The characters themselves—Ali, Levi, and Tucker—weren't inspired by anyone I know personally. Shelby Blake, the girl who bullies Ali, was loosely based on a girl I knew in high school. Sometimes we were friends, sometimes we weren't, and there were occasions where she threatened me. She really made my life hell at times. Lol.
The town of Haldeen is based very closely on my own hometown of Mexico, New York.

DEATH OF A WATERFALL
The inspiration for this story is a little harder to pinpoint. This was the first story I had ever written. I had the names Teghan and Donnie in my mind, I knew they were going to fall in love, and she was going to get pregnant. But that's all I knew. I literally just sat down one day and started to type. In the original version, I had them in high school. Then I re-wrote it to make them in college. Then I re-wrote it again to make them older. Then I went back to having them in college. After I finally got all of that worked out I started sending it to a friend of mine, who gave me a lot of great suggestions and this story was born.

Certain aspects of Teghan's character (like being a people pleaser) is all me. Teghan's best friend, Annabelle, is so much like my own best friend it's a little scary. Lol. I didn't do it intentionally, but once I read the story from beginning to end, I noticed it. Alex, Teghan's ex, was inspired by one of my very first boyfriends. And the setting of Hayden Falls and the campus, Hayden Falls University was modeled on SUNY Oswego located in Oswego, NY.
                                                                                                                                                                       
Kara is a mom to 5 (and 3 fur babies), wife to 1, and a writer for all! She's an active member of  CNY Creative Writers Café and the CNY Romance Writers and constantly writing or reading, thinking about writing or reading, and spending time with family. 
You can contact Kara on Goodreads, Facebook, and her Website

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