While editing old manuscripts, I find memories. This doesn’t surprise me as I have always used the places I have lived to inspire stories. Different houses, different towns, different cities have captured my imagination. I was lucky to have traveled and to have lived in so many places. I can’t say the same would be true for all writers but…
Here are some samples.
Australia
“Bloody hell,” Hanna cursed, using her father’s language as she shaded her eyes with her hand and searched the sky. The Japanese bombers flew low over the ocean towards Darwin, Australia’s northernmost town, and Hannah, like any other civilian who had remained in the area despite orders to evacuate, knew all too well what to do. “Fifty-bloody-four,” she muttered in disbelief. Fifty-four attacks since the war began – most of them on Darwin.
Minnesota
The Garrison house, as it has come to be known, was built more than a century ago on the west side of a tiny peninsula called Howard’s Point that juts out into the South Upper Bay of Lake Minnetonka. It is significant that the house faces west, as most of the winds come across the Dakota prairies, building in strength and magnitude before slamming into Minnesota. Anne Garrison Fox maintains that the house was built in the pathway of the worst storms, that its builder would have been wise to be wary of these seasonal dramas, and that anyone living in the house would forever suffer his negligence.
Tennessee
For a moment, Louise listened for the rustle of the hickory leaves above her and hoped for a breeze. Instead, there was stillness. Without the shadow cast from the stretched burlap hammock she sat beneath, her mud would have hardened too fast in the white midday sun. She was making a mess, but she didn’t care. When her hair worked loose from her braids, she plastered errant strands to the back of her head, and ignored the itching dirt when it dried. Mildred never got mad at her for playing with mud. Mildred didn’t mind a little dirt if no one else was around.
New Jersey
Steam whooshed up around us in a thick cloud, smelling like burnt metal and grease. Our cotton shirts, already dirty from two days of travel, stuck to us while beads of sweat nearly as big as Chuck’s tears dripped down Amelia’s forehead. In August the humidity in New Jersey is worse than the heat, and despite being only mid-morning and nowhere near time for lunch, the thought of an afternoon swim became as overpowering as an urge to itch day-old chiggers.
I’ll include New York, Washington DC, London, Sydney, and now Cape Charles, VA another time.