Night Marchers
Page 27
WHERE DID YOU GET THAT IDEA FROM?
This has to be one of the most common questions we get asked from our fans so I figured I’d take the time to answer it. The original concept of our series Night Marchers came along after we had taken a trip to Washington State to do the big ‘Twilight girl’s road trip.’
What a crazy week that was! It was easy to see why Stephenie Meyer chose Forks and La Push for her magical books. The place itself is full of mystery and wonder. We wanted something similar for our book’s location, so we set off to Google Earth to find just the right setting.
Our first stop was to check out the areal of La Push and Forks. Lo and behold we found a bunch of islands. Talk about luck! It was at this moment that we decided an island book would be the way to go. It would give us exclusivity and be full of the mystery we were looking for. However, the thing that stopped us from using this was the fact that the scenery in this area was so similar to Twilight we might get reamed for it later. So we set our sights elsewhere.
This next place looked very promising at first: The Solomon Islands off the coast of Papa New Guinea. At first they seemed perfect. A few of the islands were uninhabited and we envisioned maybe Emma originally becoming shipwrecked on one of these islands. However, upon further research we learned just how cold the climate was. And we’re talking really cold…also it’s one of the windiest places on earth. It was beautiful, but not practical. Onward and upward!
Our final stop rests on the Hawaiian Islands. At first we were a bit taken aback by the sheer population of Hawaii at just under 1.4 million people. There goes exclusivity! However, we began searching each of the islands to see if one was any better than the other. I knew that the further to the West the islands go the older and more beautiful the scenery. We thought we scored a home run when we found the island of Nihoa. You can’t really see it from Google Earth because it’s so small, but just imagine it a little to the west of Kauai. It is absolutely breathtaking AND it’s uninhabited!!!
I thought for sure this one would be it…until I looked into the climate and island facts. Apparently there is almost zilch fresh water on the island and it is inhabited by these birds and grasshoppers that make the island miserable. There’s also little to no food; so there goes that. Getting extremely frustrated I almost gave up thinking it wasn’t meant to be. That is until we stumbled upon the legend of the Night Marchers. The more we looked it up, the more it forced us to want to write about it. It’s one of those legends that haven’t had much publicity. It’s originality in and of itself made for good writing! It’s from this legend that the island of Kauai came up. While it’s not exactly uninhabited, it does have many parts of the island that are uninhabited which allowed us to use the story line that was progressing during our many brainstorming sessions.
When we saw pictures of Honopu Valley we were sold! It's one of the most beautiful places on earth (in my humble opinion). The legends that followed this valley were nothing less than extraordinary. This was it; we found our place. This valley holds not only the legend of the Night Marchers, but also the legend of the Menehune people. I placed a picture of it next to my computer while writing to give me inspiration. Someday Rebecca and I plan on visiting here; to finally see up close and personal, the world in which we used to breathe life into our story.