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.
