(The
Ravine is the first book of Mary Coley's Black Dog Series with The Wild
Rose Press. In this blog, Coley reveals the inspiration for the series
title, the book title and the story itself, came from.)
Who knows
where story ideas come from? Most writers, including me, get their
inspiration from many places: songs, pictures, news stories–and personal
experience. Ideas for my upcoming mystery THE RAVINE (release date: May
27) came from all of the above, but most heavily from personal
experience.
The setting of The Ravine is based on the
neighborhood where I live, and the dog–Monique, "Moe" for short–is a
combination of canine companions I’ve had. As for the story lines, I
drew from personal experiences and research as I created the various
tensions in the lives of my characters and their families.
But the most important character in the book is the black dog, Monique. Why a dog? And why a black one?
Friends
familiar with the world of pets and animal shelters tell me how hard it
is to find adoptive families for black dogs, especially in the larger
breeds. Maybe their black fur makes them look bigger, or menacing.
Genetically, black in the dominant gene for hair color, so if there is
black anywhere in the gene pool of a puppy, the dog has a high
likelihood of being black. Next time you visit a shelter, or a pet
store, check out all the furry black animals!
Here’s MY story about a black dog who raced into my life, kind of like Monique does in The Hill neighborhood in my story.
The
animal ran up to me one day when I was walking my other two dogs on the
streets. Playful and happy, the black lab mix followed us home and
never left. We didn't feed him initially, but the neighbors did. So he
stayed. For a time, he belonged to all of us. But it was our other black
dog, a German Shepherd/Black lab cross, that he loved.
We named
him Oscar when it became obvious he wasn't going back to wherever he
came from. It was also soon obvious he could not be 'contained.' He was a
fence climber and spent his days racing around the neighborhood chasing
and barking at cars, or playing with any dog or boy who happened to be
available.
We had him neutered and vaccinated. We bought him a
collar. We even fortified our dog yard with branches around the top of
the chain link in a useless attempt to keep him from getting out.
Sadly,
Oscar's time with us ended after a vicious fight with another
neighborhood dog. With my own grandchild soon to be born, I had to
consider, what if instead of another dog, it had been a child who
suffered injuries?
I did what had to be done with a heavy heart.
'Monique,'
the black dog in The Ravine, has Oscar's intelligence, playfulness and
spirit without the aggression and wildness he so often displayed. She is
the kind of animal I wish Oscar would have been. Like Katy Werling in
my story, I love Monique!
Watch for more books in The Black Dog Series. It's possible that Monique -- or even the real Oscar -- might race into the story.
(Be
sure to read Mary Coley's other blog posts about the Setting and the
three families of characters from The Ravine, Book One of the Black Dog
Series, coming in the next two weeks.)
Mary Coley
www.marycoley.com
www.facebook.com/MaryColeyAuthor
Pre-order from Amazon
Black dog series?! I love it! I have a the president of the Black Dog Club living at my house, in fact! (Frank, aka the love of my life, and a 13 year old lad/chow rescue) I also have Pappi and Roxie, two other black dog rescues.
ReplyDeleteGuess what? My baby Frank is a character in my current WIP. :-)
Thanks for sharing!!
Kimberly Keyes
(a fellow rose)
~Unleash your inner romantic
The Trouble with Tigers, and April 2016 release
Lover's Leap, an October 2015 release