I Dream of Ireland

Back in 1998 I took a trip to the Mt. Shannon region on Ireland’s west coast. The trip was one of those guided tours where we rode from place to place on horseback. That’s right, I toured some of the ‘wilds’ of Ireland on horseback. I was quite the equestrian back in my teens and twenties.

We rode anywhere from six to eight hours per day, going from town to town, and staying in B&B’s as we went. I was the only American in our tour group. Everyone else was from Western Europe. We rode so long and hard and that my ankle, not accustomed to the hours of use, swelled up pretty bad the second half of the trip. Despite this, it was one of the best experiences of my life.

I still remember peering into the dense forests and thinking to myself, “I now completely understand where myths of faeries and other magical creatures come from.”   It was truly magical.

It wasn’t until this year that I decided to go ahead and make Ireland the backdrop of one of my novel/novella’s (size to be determined – stories happen in their own time).  As I write about Ireland I remember peat bogs, castles, wedge tombs, the hills of Mt. Shannon, the Burren near the ocean, and the Cliffs of Moher.  Not by road like most tourists travel, but through quiet trails over rolling green hills and through deep, dense, moss-covered forests.

It’s some these memorable scenes that I hope I can bring to life in Her Demon Lover. That’s my goal anyway. I am not usually one of those descriptive, spoon-feeding writers by my nature (as many of you know), but I am always trying to grow as a writer and experiment. So we’ll see how it goes.