Have you used something that happened to you in real life in any of your stories? Did you change it at all?
As a rule, I mostly use my imagination in my stories. Sometimes one of the characters might like a food or piece of music I enjoy, but that’s about it. There’s one big exception to the rule, and that’s Fortuna. I included several examples of things that had happened to me or to someone in my family. To my surprise, a publisher told me it wasn’t very true to life. I laughed and laughed. My family is many things, but they aren’t boring.
One example is a food fight between my heroine Aimee and a lady she knew and didn’t like. That food fight is based on an incident that really happened. In real life no food was thrown, but with a little embellishment it made a really nice scene.
Another incident which is almost identical to the way it happened in real life is when a snake bit Aimee. It wasn’t really a snake, though. It was a briar sticking in the back of her leg, and since she’d been warned about snakes she jumped to conclusions. I remember when that happened. We laughed about it for years. It happened to my cousin, and I can still see her making laps around the yard with everyone trying to catch her.
Anyway, here’s a short excerpt from the food fight, which took place in a church fellowship hall.
From the corner of her eye, Aimee saw the priest hurrying their way. She fired one final bean ball, which hit the blonde’s forehead with a beany thud.
Rocky grabbed her arm. “They’re circling the wagons. Let’s get out of here.”
Practically running, they made their escape from the church. Rocky took the precaution of locking the truck doors. He sighed. “I guess we can’t come back to this church either. Are we going to become atheists?”
“Of course not!”
Sunk in gloom, they drove back to Fortuna. The jinx was still on as far as churches were concerned.
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