How did you come up with the story of The Heart Denied?
The Heart Denied began with a dream. Literally. (No pun intended.)
At 4:00 one morning during April of 1994, I woke up, having just witnessed a man who looked about forty, dressed in period clothing and reclining on a bed in an old-fashioned house, being raked over the coals (ripped a new one, for you under-30s) by his wife.
His dead wife.
She looked fairly wholesome for a dead person, and was wearing a long, high-necked dress, so at first I didn't understand she wasn't of this world. But I knew she was angry. In a shrill voice with a British accent, she accused the man of having been unfaithful throughout their marriage. Mention was made of a young woman who worked around the stables. Maybe the wife was referring to a place where horses were kept, but I've since wondered if 'stables' was a euphemism for, say, 'brothel' (under-30s, look it up). Regardless, this lady was pissed. And her husband?
The poor man was beside himself. 'Apologetic' doesn't cover it. He was desperately sorry, and begging her for forgiveness. Then, he begged her for something else--and it was at that point I realized she was a ghost.
He begged her to stop haunting him.
When I opened my eyes to the darkness of my own bedroom, I didn't feel so much that I'd been dreaming, but more as though I'd witnessed a scene from a movie. Except I didn't recognize the movie. And this scene had certainly come with dialogue--intense, painful, and so fresh in my mind that I could have sat down (or rather, up) at that moment and written every word of it on the notepad I kept beside my bed.
But I didn't. What I did, before going back to sleep, was think, Hmm, maybe I've just been handed the premise for that novel I've always wanted to write.
And then, already thinking like a writer, I'll have to make the guy younger.
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