Inspiration

This is my inspiration board (of sorts) for Dax and Harlow’s story, Everything She Ever Wanted. You’ll find the songs that inspired Harlow and Dax, as well as the setting and videos of the Phoenix Earthship, the inspiration behind the Pearl that Dax builds in memory of his mother.

This is Harlow’s song for Everything She Ever Wanted and the epigraph is a few lines that Brendan James, the singer gave me permission to use for the book. 

Driving in a trance in your lost and lonely town
Something in the air that could blow your whole house down
something like a tragedy, something that you think you need

Turning on a dime you pull in your local store
hours going by you forget what you’re looking for,
maybe it’s a pot of gold, maybe you’re too lost to know

maybe what you need is a different kind of love
one that you have never seen
maybe all you are is part of a star on a long journey
maybe what you need is a better kind of love
one that you can only dream
maybe it will take all your sorrow away and maybe you can feel free

nothing like a storm in your heart to wake you up,
someone by your side and you know they’re not enough
maybe you should try and stay; maybe you should walk away

(chorus)

maybe you’ll wake up to a brighter of sun
voices in your head saying now the change has come
with a different kind of love…

This song was my inspiration for Dax:

Run with me down these midnight streets
we will take nothing for granted (nothing for granted)
Come with me, life is short and sweet
we will take nothing for granted (nothing for granted)

stop the seasons drifting by
stop believing there’s no time
stop your heart from closing up
I think you deserve it all
love your future love your past
love your body, it’s all you got
love your secrets bottled up,
love them more when you give them up

Dorian Spencer – New Mexico

New Mexico by Dorian Spencer – He was nice enough to give me permission to share the song and here it is. You can get your own copy on Itunes or his website.

Time passes and years bring change,
people go and memories remain
love shines in different ways
when you’re thinking of those good old days
like a dream I had and want to have again
someday I’ll go back and do what I did then

In New Mexico
where my soul was free
in the land of enchantment and wood stoves and juniper trees
a distant view as far as I could see
of deep (x) and hot springs and pictures by Georgie O’Keefe

rich land in bright sunshine
flash floods and old coal mines
ghost towns in silent nights
and the bags with candle light
adobe homes and old dirt roads
all I can think of now is New Mexico

I first bought this song so many years ago, maybe more than ten years now and I’ve always loved how carefree it feels and brings so many memories of my time in New Mexico. Unfortunately, it’s not on Youtube but you can sample and purchase it from Dorian’s website.

The Phoenix Earthship in Taos, New Mexico – Inspiration for the Pearl Earthship that Dax builds in memory of his mother.

I stayed in an Earthship for some time so many years ago (about ten years) and fell in love with it. I knew then that I’d one day write a story set in an Earthship but never in my wildest dreams knew it would be Everything She Ever Wanted. Dax and Harlow were supposed to meet in some ski resort town!

Ashley gives an official tour of a smaller version of an Earthship:

Fortunately, Harlow had her own ideas from the first chapter onwards complete with that drastic thing she had planned to do which I never plotted at all. Dax in chapter 2 was never plotted at all either. I just let my characters come to me just as they are!

Snow falling in Taos (Via Taos News on Facebook):