Fiction Fridays: Guest Blog by Loree Peery

The Story Behind the Story by Loree Peery

Every writer has a particular process. Mine only works when I put myself aside, pray that I reach that creative zone where my soul spills out, inspired by a power much greater than I. My dear Lord covers my inadequacies with His grace.

For me, the story begins with character. When I was writing Moselle’s Insurance (my first published novel), I determined that Moselle’s mother, Geneva (Rainn on My Parade), and aunt Lanae deserved their own happily-ever-after. That idea was reinforced by writer friends who loved all three characters. The series is centered around Frivolities, a kooky shop in fictitious Platteville, Nebraska, created by the Geneva and Lanae.

I needed to come up with a reason for Moselle to return to Platteville. My sister Renée’s courage as a hepatitis C survivor inspired me. I thought of how sick and tired she was while Renée went through her treatment for hep C, her determination to overcome, all wrapped up in a visual of Jamie Lee Curtis as I wrote the first two stories. And, I pulled in some of the like qualities sisters may have. Our familial green-hazel eyes and similar mannerisms crept in along the way.

A montage of several ideas jelled together during and after I wrote Moselle’s Insurance and Rainn on My Parade. I really like country music. Tim McGraw’s, “Live like You were Dying” exemplifies how I believe we should face illness in our lives. Those words fueled Lanae’s tenacity, and her spunkiness. Going along with the country theme, I placed Lanae on a ranch in western Nebraska as part of her back story, where she tried to survive after her husband died.

Lanae’s creative contribution to Frivolities is crocheting and baking cheescakes. She embellishes her own clothing with rosettes or touches of embroidery on denim. And she pushes everyone around her to live with gusto, not holding back.

I pictured Sage as a cowboy who keeps to himself. How would Lanae meet her cowboy? My family discovered love letters in baker’s recipe box that belonged to my husband’s uncle, written back in the thirties and early forties. Part of my writing process is utilizing a piece of my life in my stories. The idea of a secret stash of letters found after Lanae buys the vanity from Sage was born.

Also in the story thread for Sage and Sweetgrass, I had one of those aha moments tying into the plot thread of the letters. A secondary character, the town gossip, is redeemed. And that’s what I always try to incorporate in my stories, God’s redeeming grace.

About Sage and Sweetgrass:

Survivor Lanae Petersen finds a moving love letter in an antique and seeks to discover the writer. Sage Diamond is holding on to the memory of his deceased wife. The last thing he needs is a tenacious woman who threatens to uncover his family secret.