Introduction | "Scarlet Begonias" by The Grateful Dead

In the introduction for The Strangest of Places, where I explained the alignment between the chapters and their associated song titles, I said the following:

Why did I choose “Scarlet Begonias” for this introduction? For starters, the book’s title is contained in its lyrics; you’ll get that connection in the final chapter. Additionally, “Scarlet Begonias” was my first favorite Grateful Dead song. As such, it seems a fitting start, since most of the inspiration for this book is rooted in the existence and persistence of the good ol’ Grateful Dead and all related ripple effects therein (see what I did there?). 

I'm revisiting this section here because I want to be clear about the line of demarcation that separates fact from fiction in this book.

Have you ever seen the movie Shakespeare in Love? I'm asking not only because it's a fantastic movie -- especially if you're a fan of the Bard -- but because it does a really good job of showing what my own writing process looks like. The full scope of this story is fiction, but it's lit with sense and color from bits and pieces of real life.

To give you an idea of what I mean, there's a scene within the opening 10 minutes or so of the movie where Shakespeare is walking through the streets of London and he passes by a preacher decrying the evils of the theater. In his protestations, the preacher makes references to rough versions of the phrases that later became famous as "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and "a plague on both your houses," which Shakespeare later performed his wordsmithery on for inclusion in Romeo & Juliet. As this relates to how I write, let's take Autumn MacLeod's name, for example. Though there are references to Highlander as the inspiration, that was more afterthought than inspiration. Autumn's first name came first; on September 21, 2005, to be exact.

That was the day I found out that I was pregnant for the first time. As my husband and I began dreaming of the baby we knew was on its way, conversation drifted to names. Because I took the pregnancy test on the first day of autumn, we quickly agreed that if it was a girl, her name would be Autumn Skye. If it were a boy, well... we weren't sure yet, but we'd figure it out.

It was a boy, as were his twin brothers who arrived 6 years later. Having resigned myself to being a boy mom, when I sat down to write this story, I knew my main character's name would be Autumn Skye. Her last name seemed a natural progression, given her middle name (if you don't understand the connection, MacLeod is pronounced "MacCloud"). I worked in the Highlander reference as an afterthought; it gave me a touchpoint on Autumn's Scottish heritage as well as a point of connection for her with Lucy's dad, Dave.

Hopefully Connor MacLeod (of the clan MacLeod) won't mind sharing his name with my girl.