Writer’s Corner: Drawing on Experience

When I was a little girl, I had a recurring nightmare about spiders. There were thousands of them coming out of the woodwork in my grandparent’s house. I would try to run away from them, tearing up the stairs and into the bedroom I shared with my mother hoping that she could save me. But she couldn’t, and the spiders just kept coming until mom and I were both standing on our beds and there was no where else to go. Then, I would always wake up with my heart racing.

That dream stuck with me, and I’ve always had a fear of spiders. Somehow, I always knew that my nightmare would end up in a story one day. Put it together with a couple of creepy encounter, which involved actually watching a black widow’s egg sac hatch as a teen, and another quite recently, and wouldn’t you know it. Spiders found their way into the short story I’ve been writing for the Curses anthology.

The story is titled “Death Clock”, and it’s about, you guessed it, a cursed clock. But as I wrote, I didn’t feel like the atmosphere and mood was hitting the mark. I had a very creepy experience with real spiders, which brought my nightmare to the forefront of my mind and it suddenly hit me, that spiders was what this story needed. I wrote them into the story in two different scenes with the spiders and the story just came to life.

It’s not the first time I’ve drawn on real life experiences as fodder for my stories. My not so short story, “Terror on a Mountain Trail” (Last Call and Other Short Fiction, 2020), is based on a true life experience I had when I was up trail riding on my ATV and was attacked. My children’s book, Charlie Chickadee Finds a New Home (2024) was inspired by a group pf swallows that swarmed in and chased a family of chick-a-dees from their nest in a tree in my front yard. My short story, “Woman in the Water” (Whispers of the Past, 2019),was inspired by a real setting as I sat on the rocks above a waterfall one day. And of course, it’s no secret that I write a lot of historical fiction, which revolves around the true life experiences of others which I experience vicariously through my research.

In fact, “Death Clock” is based on the true history of Ormulu clocks, bronze gilded clocks made in the sixteenth century through a process that involved using mercury to bond the gold to the bronze, which killed or drove many clockmakers insane before it was finally prohibited by law. And the second story I’m writing for the Curses anthology, “Caverna Del Oro (Cave of Gold)”, is based on the legend of a cursed cave in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, near Westcliffe, Colorado. As a native Coloradoan, I have hiked in many of these mountains, and although I haven’t actually been on Marble Mountain, where the cave of gold is located, my own experiences exploring the Colorado mountains are interwoven into that story, as well.

I’m sure other writers do something similar in their writing processes. What kinds of experiences find their way into your writing?

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and her Time-Travel Adventure novel, The Rock Star & The Outlaw,as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders and The D.I.Y. Author writing resource.

Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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