Wellspring: Finding Your Story Inspiration by Rachel Dacus

Wellspring: Finding Your Story Inspiration

by Rachel Dacus

Some say sadness is the wellspring for creative inspiration, but for me it’s often curiosity. I found the inspiration for my recent novel, Undoing Time, following a whim into a Google search on my phone. I still can’t believe the entirety of a novel arose from idleness while sitting in my car, waiting outside a veterinary office while my terrier had her annual checkup. 

My whimsical query to Google was: “women artists history has forgotten”. Now that more history is being gathered online, there should be more about women in history. I’d just published a novel in my time travel series that featured a 17th-century Italian woman artist, and I was in that space where curiosity can roam the Internet. 

The arts have been part of my whole life, as my father was a painter and my mother a musician. Hunting for another woman artist seemed a logical step, and for a change from the Italian Renaissance art, I thought I’d veer in the direction of America’s women artists. 

Pandemic protocol at our veterinary office meant we couldn’t go into the building. They took my dog from me at the car, and I had an hour to wait, with a charged-up phone and a vague idea about women artists and the American Revolution. I got lucky fast, finding Patience Lovell Wright, an American sculptor active in the late 18th century, a brilliant, eccentric Quaker who lived in London during the Revolution. An unlikely sympathizer with America’s independence, and an even more unlikely spy, she was both. Her qualities intrigued me. She was an eccentric, a visionary, and a rebel devoted to the cause of freedom. 

My half-formed time travel main character, Liv Pomeroy, needed to grow some independence of her own. She needed to summon her bravery to resist her wealthy, domineering family and create her own life. How better to inspire Liv than to bring her to meet this courageous woman who risked her life for what she believed in?

How I Get Ideas for Books

In developing ideas for fiction, character precedes plot for me. Patience Lovell Wright was a woman ahead of her time and a perfect foil for Liv Pomeroy, and I like mentor relationships. Patience was charismatic, lively, a social butterfly who hosted important people who gossiped about British military strategy. She was a delicious character. While Patience was regaling her London visitors in 1777 and making wax portraits, she was listening, hearing pieces of information that could be useful to General George Washington. She conveyed information inside the wax figures she had shipped back to the colonies. But when a ship wasn’t fast enough, Patience needed a time traveler to get an urgent message across the sea.

I could have gone for a straight historical based on Wright’s amazing life, but time travel folds centuries and cultures together. To put Liv Pomeroy into contact with Patience Wright seemed the perfect challenge. I could imagine Patience grooming the pampered Liv, who was unused to risking her comfort, let alone her life. Naturally, Patience would recruit Liv to help her spying operation and thus help her mentee to find purpose.

To Outline or To Pants the First Draft?

After my first novel, I learned the value of having an outline to steer by. At the inception of an idea, I start by outlining characters, premise, and a rough overall story idea. I even write a hook or a short blurb. But I have difficulty sticking to outlines. As my understanding of the characters grows, their behavior changes and so does the plot. I keep the outline as a Word document and update it regularly as I write the first draft. The outline helps me remember key things, especially because I’m changing the story, pacing, maybe even my storytelling approach. 

Often I’ll get an idea for the characters speaking and I dictate dialogue on the Notes app on my phone. I speak aloud as if playing all the parts. Maybe it’s exposure to a lot of TV and movies, but conversation among characters always helps me investigate new plot turns. It’s weird and surprising, but I seem to hear their voices. 

As I wrote the American Revolution portion of Undoing Time, I wondered what Patience would have been like if she lived in our century, with our women’s rights. Briefly, I considered changing the plot and having her come into the 21st century. Ultimately, I didn’t follow that idea, but I like to think she’d fit right in. Probably Patience Wright would be in Congress. She might even make a good president. She was articulate, outspoken, and believed in an almost mystical vision of America’s future. 

But I realized it was better for me to compare and contrast the revolutionary period with our own through the eyes of Liv Pomeroy. How hard it must have been to become the extraordinary artist Patience Wright became. How she must have challenged herself to take action for the freedom she believed in. We might learn from her struggles, as Liv Pomeroy did, seeing a historical woman’s bravery firsthand, a woman struggling against tremendous odds to follow her vision and truth. 

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Rachel Dacus is the author of four novels: Undoing Time, The Time Gatherer, The Renaissance Club, and The Invisibles. Her poetry collections are Arabesque, Gods of Water and Air, Femme au Chapeau, and Earth Lessons. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies that include Boulevard and Prairie Schooner, as well as Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California. She lives in the San Francisco Area with her architect husband and Silky Terrier. More on her author site: https://racheldacus.net.

@Rachel_Dacus

Goodreads: @Rachel_Dacus 

UNDOING TIME

Betrayed by her faithless fiancé, she rebounds by joining a team that repairs broken history. Will time traveling restore her heart, or will a fellow team member break it all over again?

Heiress Liv Pomeroy travels in time—but only forward—to make her perfect life even more perfect. Before her wedding, she jumps ahead and discovers her fiancé and best friend ordering the flowers—and clinging like lovers.

What’s a poor, jilted rich girl to do? Head to Florence, Italy. Liv’s order of a perfect marriage is canceled, and a summer of extravagant sadness is on the menu, along with the delicious Italian food. Forget passion. Romance destroys you. But then, there’s Italy.

In Italy, Liv learns that her cousin May shares a genetic quirk—undoing time—but May’s on a mission. Her team combats power-hungry scientists who alter history to gain power in the future. They repair history wherever the Optimalists have changed it. It’s dangerous work, but Liv is ready to be reckless.

Tom Royland, a member of the time team, presents a bigger danger than falling through time. He has outrageous charm and knows how to use it. His kiss is as heady as a bowl of Chianti. When he grabs Liv’s hand and pulls her into California’s Gold Rush, she’s scared, thrilled, and ready to time travel again. Maybe to explore this thing between them.

But Tom says she doesn’t have the right stuff for his team. Pride demands she prove him wrong.

Time traveling to the 18th century challenges Liv’s courage and complicates her growing feelings for Tom. When she’s captured as a spy, Liv has to find out if the man she’s falling for is really a traitor to the American Revolution.

Thrilling time travel adventure and romance—perfect for readers who like history, romance, and intrigue combined with a dash of magic.

Praise for the series:
*** Rachel Dacus deftly crafts a unique and spellbinding twist to the time-traveling adventure that’s perfect for fans of Susanna Kearsley and Diana Gabaldon. ~ Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.

*** The Renaissance Club shimmers with beauty, poetry, and art … a gorgeously romantic story. — Georgina Young-Ellis, author of The Time Mistress Series

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