One of My Favorite Characters Isn't Really a Character

By Andrew Grey

I’ve developed many characters for my stories, people with varied pasts and experiences and I’ve even created a number of animal characters including horses, dogs, a deer, and even a lion, but the most amazing character I’ve ever developed is a place, or more clearly, a farm. In the Love Means… stories, Laughton Farms isn’t just the setting for the stories, it’s a place with a unique feeling that allows my human characters to heal, find peace, or fall in love. When I began writing these stories, I didn’t set out to create a place like this, it simply happened over time and I only realized what I’d created when readers began writing me asking if there was an inspiration for Laughton Farms and how they wished they could move there.

The real Laughton Farms, or at least the inspiration for Laughton Farms, does exist outside Ludington Michigan. It happens to be the farm across the street from where I grew up. As a teenager, I cleaned stalls, swept the barn, and even rode horses there. It was also there, at four AM one wintery morning that I got to witness something amazing, the birth of a colt. At the time, I thought my job there was simply hard work and a way to make money, but now I realize just how special that time was for me. Life was much slower, definitely less complicated, and quite frankly, stunningly beautiful in its relative simplicity.

For me, Laughton Farms is a calm place and I go there when I need a respite from the world. I’ve written over three dozen stories, but Laughton Farms is where my imagination takes me when I need peace. I’d like to think we all have a place like Laughton Farms where we can go when we need to recharge our batteries, fall in love, or just feel the power of a horse beneath us and the wind through our hair. And that’s one of the beauties of being a writer, because if you don’t have your own place like that, I can share mine.

To learn more you can find me at:
My web site: http://www.andrewgreybooks.com/
Blog: http://andrewgreybooks.livejournal.com/
I'm also andrewgreybooks on twitter
And you can find me on Facebook.