Idyll Dreams & Nonsensical Things

The random thoughts and whimsical writings of Cari Lyn Jones

If you have been reading my blog for a while then you know that I rarely have only one WIP at a time. I usually have a main project (currently the third book in my Stolen Away series), a secondary project (the second book in my An Affinity for the Dead series), and a “fun” …

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When I was growing up, I often explored the land around where I lived, usually on horseback. I would pack some snacks or a lunch and go out riding through the pine woods and along the white sandy roads. Sadly, many of those woods and wild places are gone, but thankfully not all of them. …

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As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, Inspirations and Interesting Tidbits, a great deal of inspiration for the land around Ashwood town came from my own memories. I grew up walking down sandy roads and exploring the woods around where I lived, usually on horseback. A lot of those places are long gone …

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It has been a while since I posted one of my fairytales and this one has been brewing in the back of my mind for a while. When my daughter and I were visiting a botanical garden, we saw the most beautiful fish. The pictures just don’t do it justice! It was the palest gold …

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Unlike many gas lamp fantasies, my upcoming novel Where the Angels Dream is not set in Victorian London or New York or some other similarly industrious city (or sometimes the fantasy equivalent of them). No, for Ashwood town and the land around it, my inspiration came from places a little closer to home.  I grew …

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When I first read “The Fly-Away Horse” by Eugene Fields it set my imagination alight! I found it in an old book of poems at my grandmother’s house. I don’t remember how old I was (pretty young), and I thought it would be an amazing thing to be able to fly away to faraway lands …

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‘Tis the season… Sometimes, a scene for a story will burst full-grown into my mind, and sometimes it’s just a vague inkling. A foggy idea that sends me off along a twisty path that is not guaranteed to lead anywhere. In this case, my meandering journey was prompted by a scene that may (or may …

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Happy Halloween! It should come as no surprise to you that when I started my current WIP “Where the Angels Dream” I fell down a LOT of rabbit holes. The story, set sometime in the late 1890s, is about Devon and Sara Amaris, a brother and sister with a strong affinity for the dead. There …

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Yep, cheese! Or more accurately, how to make it. When I was writing The Broken Court there was a sentence, this sentence actually… Some of what was left, she set near the hearth with the plans that she would make cheese with it. which sent me off into an hour-plus long search on making cheese. …

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Given my Stolen Away series is about fairies, it should be no surprise that I did more than a few web searches about them. No, the surprise was just how far down the rabbit hole I fell for just a few paragraphs. Yep, the writing of those couple of paragraphs set my feet on the …

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