Now, let's venture into the mind of Shiloh Walker...
Where do you get your ideas from?
I think this is one question almost every author gets asked. Probably every author.
Some have these beautiful, articulate answers that make me feel silly-because my answer is very often...I dunno.
But for Through the Veil, I actually have an answer. The idea for Veil came from my husband. And he got the idea from a bruise. A bruise on me, to be exact.
You see, I'm one of those weird people that wake up with bruises. Weird bruises. No medical reason for it-I just bruise easy. But I rarely remember what I did to get the bruise. One day, he said something like.... You need to write a book about a woman who keeps waking up with bruises because while she's sleeping, she's getting sucked into another world and she's fighting a war there.
And the writer in me went...hmmmmmm...I can do that. I wanted to do it. The idea was there, just barely, but there, simmering in the back of my mind for years. Probably three or four years before the idea was ever more than just an idea. Then I saw this picture-
It's the cover a book written by author Vivi Anna. Since the time I saw it, it has been rewritten, has a new cover, new pub...but if I hadn't seen this cover, that idea my husband gave me just might not have taken flight the way it did. If I saw this picture and he hadn't given me that idea...well, the story never would have been.
So the person on the cover is a woman. I was actually seeing more the hero crouched there. In my mind, he wasn't on a creature...but hey. The colors. The darkness. The utter desolation I see, coupled with a fierce determination.
It got the idea going. Like you wouldn't believe. So I started pounding a little bit of the story out. Then I got busy. It got pushed to the wayside. But always, it was there in the back of my mind, waiting.
Then I look up one day and realize...uh-oh, I need a new book to write. So I take the book out. It was titled Under Realm then, but the idea was still the same.
The heroine in Veil is Lee. She's a graphic artist, has a nice, ordinary life...but her life isn't as ordinary as she thinks. Lee wakes up almost every day with bruises and the echo of crazy dreams she can't really remember. When she's working, she creates images of this man with a face like a dark angel, a body to match, and eyes that made her burn.
She has absolutely no idea that he is real. That he needs her. When she finally figures that out, her first thought was that she'd gone crazy from the lack of sleep. By the time she figures out she's wrong...well, that's when things get interesting.
If she isn't going crazy, she's in a whole new world of trouble. And her dream guy is only the beginning.
Hope you enjoy Through the Veil-I certainly did--at least when it wasn't driving me crazy.
Ciao~
Shiloh Walker
http://shilohwalker.com
Shiloh is holding a scavenger hunt and you can find the info here. She's offering up some great prizes:
- One $50 GC to Barnes & Noble
- One $15 GC to Barnes & Noble
- One $10 GC to Mybookstoreandmore.com
Go check it out!
