If you’ve written a story of any type, chances are that someone’s asked you the following question at some point:

“How did you come up with that?”

I find it fascinating to discover where people come up with their ideas. My fellow Carina authors have a wide variety of stories out there, but the stories behind their books are often just as interesting (see Shirin Dubin’s post on the inspiration behind her wonderful book Dreams Dark Kiss to see what I mean).

In my case, it’s hard to pin down one thing that spawned the idea for 47 Echo, the story of a group of convicts forced to serve in a massive war against China and North Korea. One of the first thing I remember, though, was crunching a bunch of numbers.

I read somewhere a year or two back that China had a standing army of nearly 4 million soldiers. I’d also heard the statistic (on British TV, from Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson) that America had the largest number of its own citizens in prison, more than 2 million people. Then, much later, I saw an infographic on the Web that showed what each country led the world in. For America, it was number of people in prison. For North Korea, it was soldiers — there are more than 13 million of them in the tiny Communist country.

So, all of these numbers started kicking around the back of my brain. A few months later, I was at my parents’ house for a week, visiting near the Thanksgiving holiday. I stay up pretty late, and one night after everyone else had gone to bed, I was poking through the bookshelves at their house for something to read. I found some of my father’s yearbooks from the 80s, books constructed by his units’ public affairs people when he was in the Air Force. More than  once, the “threat of Global Communism” appeared on the pages of these books. I remembered growing up scared to death of the Russians — they were Communist and wanted to eat us or something, right?

Then, finally, a writing group I’m part of had a discussion on “best first lines of a novel.” I was kicking around ideas for what I wanted to write next, but I didn’t have anything really solid. As I sat there staring at the screen trying to think of something to post, the first line of what would become 47 Echo popped into my head:

“What size boots you wear?” The old man hacked as he led Nick through the open-air morgue, his hand already hovering close to the feet of the nearest corpse.

And from there, I was off. What followed was long nights of research and writing, every night without fail from June to October 2009.

So that’s how I came up with that. But what about you, folks? What inspires your stories? How did you come up with that?

And another question I find equally fascinating: what’s the best premise of any story you’ve read so far?

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Shawn Kupfer grew up a military brat and has been a Science Fiction fan since he could walk, but 47 Echo is his first military sci-fi story. You can find Shawn at http://www.47echo.com, or catch him daily at his blog at http://47echo.wordpress.com. During the day, he works as a subcontractor for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The original idea for Demon’s Dance came from a rather raunchy Japanese movie featuring a smutty photographer which shall remain nameless, but as it evolved, it became influenced by my daily life, namely, the ways I’ve learned how to interact with horses. There are no actual horses in this one (though they invited themselves into the forthcoming Demon’s Due and Demon’s Dawn) but there are elements of things I’ve been learning, including riding, bodywork, horse-assisted yoga, and energy work.

Caveat: I was never a horse-crazy girl. I never thought I would have a horse (much less NINE!) in my backyard. Until 2009, I’d ridden a horse once in summer camp, so I had very little idea of what I’d be getting into. I came out to southern Arizona to visit a writer friend with the intention of just taking pictures of the pretty horses, but Carrma had other ideas.

Meet Carrma:

Carrma is a Lipizzan, as are the other eight horses here at the farm. Carrma, twenty-three and a retired broodmare, had this Cunning Plan of having her very own human to play with and be coddled by. She arranged the universe so that four months later she had her wish. When I met her, she was green (an inexperienced riding horse) and a bit saggy and wobbly, but after a year and a half of attention, she is sound, balanced, and gives the young ones a run for their money. Just like the Companions out of a Mercedes Lackey novel (who, incidentally, are based on Lipizzans,) Carrma chose me, and I love her to pieces.

The relationship between horse and rider, in a way, parallels one of the themes of Demon’s Dance. People often see horses (or my half-incubus cambions) as tools, the faster, stronger, or fancier the better and ruin them with their own carelessness or greed, but for those who are open-minded and who long for a deeper level of companionship, it can be truly rewarding. A horse (or cambion) can be a partner, an equal, a friend beyond price. Carrma taught me to ride and introduced me to a world far different than the one I knew. In Demon’s Dance, Tristan, who is a cambion, wants to be more than a tool to be used, and he has that chance with Cory if only he can convince the Wardens—his handlers—to let him take it.

The Warden/cambion relationship, like that between horse and human, is a play of energy and intention, of knowing what movement is best for the horse (or cambion) and aiding them in doing it comfortably and encouraging them to perform to the highest level they can. The Wardens are experts at body language and use their physical skills to aid their cambions. Horses, too, read body language, and, if you’re a good human and listen, they will tell you what to do to make riding or groundwork better for you. For one example, the herd here volunteers for horse-assisted yoga. While there are programs in which humans do actual yoga poses on horses, this class has the humans in the midst of the herd, and the horses will often step in and remind a human to breathe or point out the way a pose could be better.

(I’m not joking; see? I assure you, the horses do this of their own accord.)

The horses know these things, much like the Wardens in Demon’s Dance do. The Wardens who are Sensitives, in particular, have a deeper level of knowledge and a means of manipulating energy the regular Wardens don’t. Then again, some real-life folks I know have the same ability, and it’s one of those things you don’t quite believe until you see it and sometimes not even then.

The relationship isn’t always 100% perfect. Horses (and cambions) have their bad days too. Carrma kicked me once (but then, so would you if you had a toe jammed into your side.) There was an evening she had me in tears because I couldn’t get her to turn to the right. Just like a stallion near a mare in heat, a cambion, because of his half-incubus heritage, can become out of control and dangerous if he or she isn’t handled properly, and can even kill their handler. In the book, Cory has to contend with this; his ignorance puts him and Tristan both in grave danger.

Some horses (or cambions) will never be able to reach a higher level of companionship, being too self-involved or rather limited mentally and emotionally, but those who can are invaluable. In the latter half of Demon’s Dance, there’s a scene where one of the Wardens is working with Tristan, and Cory is enthralled by the way the Warden can make Tristan’s demon half dance and likens it to the riders in the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, whose movements are imperceptible as they encourage their Lipizzan stallions to perform the most incredible dance steps. This is the epitome of horsemanship, where the riders strive for an “unparalleled harmony between rider and horse.”

That high ideal is what my protagonists in Demon’s Dance aspire to, a degree of companionship and intimacy in which both men become far more than they believed they could be. They learn from each other and treat each other as equals, rather like me, who never expected to ride, and Carrma, who has found additional careers as Trail Pony, Teacher Pony, and Yoga Instructor.

Oh, and before I go, Carrma told me to say, “Go hug your favorite four-legged if you have one, and then tell us how your animal friends have inspired you.”

Evey Brett writes LGBT SF/F, Romance and Horror and was a Fellow at the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices. She lives in Southern Arizona with a herd of Lipizzans. Visit her online at http://www.eveybrett.wordpress.com