Cemeteries are an
integral part of the setting for the characters of the Reaper Series, who
spend a lot of time traveling to, from, and through them. All of the cemeteries
of the Reaper Series were inspired by
real-life cemeteries near my own hometown. In
fact, I’ve done an entire series called Grave
Discoveries featuring unique and interesting headstones I’ve encountered
in my travels.
Before beginning the Reaper
Series, I had little interest in cemeteries. My own mother knows I’ll
likely never visit her grave once she’s passed and has taken matters into her
own hands by purchasing and placing her own headstone in the family plot,
complete with engraved flowers in a vase on the face of the stone.
Perpetual flowers. It’s a thing.
Yesterday
I got completely lost in my travels.
For
my day job, I’m a vampire for a local blood bank. I travel around organizing
blood drives across five counties, and I am responsible for nearly ten thousand
donations a year. Most days go smoothly since I’ve covered the same ground for
the past fourteen years now, but one wrong turn yesterday took me completely
off the map and into parts unknown.
The
unexpected writerly benefit was I found some super cool graveyards.
You
probably don’t really pay much attention to cemeteries. But once you start
looking, you’ll see they are like Chinese restaurants and banks…there’s one on
every corner.
I
am particularly drawn to decrepit and neglected graveyards. There is an
abundance of such places in the rural countryside. Most rely on volunteers to mow
the grounds and some haven’t been mowed in a very long time.
Those
are the best.
I
especially like broken tombstones and those worn slick by time and the elements.
If
you’d like to read my sentiments on the tradition of burying our dead in steel
boxes, you can find a post here.
No
one will ever admire my broken tombstone, but that’s okay.
Since
I write reapers, I find graveyards inspiring.
Sometimes
you can find inspiration in the strangest places.
Just
be careful, some cemeteries are more proactive than others.
Have
you ever visited a place that begged for a story afterward? Have you ever
visited a place because it was
mentioned or featured in a fiction work?
Lisa has always enjoyed reading about monsters in love and now she
writes about them. Reapers. The grim kind.
She adores beasties of all sorts, fictional as
well as real, and has a farm full of them in her Southwest Missouri home,
including: one child, one husband, two dogs, two cats, a dozen hens, thousands
of Italian bees, and a guinea pig.
She may or may not keep a complete zombie
apocalypse bug-out bag in her trunk at all times, including a machete. Just.
In. Case.
