Hey Ross, just wondering where your ideas come from. I am a strong believer that our stories are autobiographical. But yours? Not so much.

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[Why hello there, Sherrie!

If you're a strong believer in which my story is not autobiographical, then you are partially-correct. On this note, would you believe me if I told you a number of my ideas come from dreams I've had at night whilst I slept? But most of those come from the result of year-upon-year of character and plot-development.

And speaking of ideas coming from dreams, let me tell you a little story about one of those ideas...

One night, back in August of 2019, I had a dream, where I was walking with some folks close to my age. In this dream, we spotted this real old farm. There was no-one on it, except for us. And it featured a grain elevator. Back then, I didn't have a smartphone, so this was somehow reflected in my dream. So, I took a picture of the structure and it suddenly collapsed!...In my dream! Needless to say, me and everyone in my group was quite shocked by this turn of events.

When I woke up, I was so amazed, I wrote all the details of the dream down on a Word Document, where I have my dreams recorded. Next, I sat and thought about it for a short while, and ideas for a character to 'own' the farm came into my mind. Now, I just needed to find a picture of someone to portray her. Then, I met Rebecca McNutt.

Here is her profile link: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... <---- This lady is a self-published author, just like me! And yet, she has a HUGE cult-following of over some 15,000 followers! I got to know her, then quickly pitched my idea to her, asking if she'd be interested in having this character in my 7th novel portrayed in her likeness. Well, to my utter shock, she not only accepted my offer, but actually had a small hand in developing the setting for this role! :-D

...Eventually, Secrets of the Past was published on May 15th 2020. Some time after this, I asked Rebecca to read, rate, and review this very same novella, which I 'placed her into'. She must've liked the book as she gave it 3 out of 5 stars and wrote a really swell review of it also! The funny thing is...She didn't mention anything about the character I created, based on her. Hmm...Perhaps she's the humble type, no? Amd yet, 20 of her fans took notice of her review and liked it. This is a good ending for me!

Whew! Sorry I got a little carried away in my explanation there. But long story short, I'd say roughly half of my series is autobiographical, while half isn't. But it's still pure-fantasy, sci-fi, and coming-of-age. Enjoy it! (hide spoiler)]

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