Warning: If you haven’t finished book seven of The Genie Whisperer, The Lost Libraries, this post contains minor spoilers. 

Inspiration

When it comes to writing, I take inspiration from just about everything. When I was plotting Ali, Illan, and Garan going to the library of Pergamon, I needed a little something to put Ali in danger so Garan could save her and inspire confidence in Illan that Garan would (and could) protect her. And it couldn’t be something big, otherwise Illan himself would have done it. 

I ended up looking up whether Turkey had any poisonous snakes I could use, and it turns out they do have some nasty (and aggressive) snakes! It worked perfectly for something subtle, yet dangerous that would show that despite Garan not always seeming all the way there, he is absolutely attuned to Ali and her status. 

It was only later that I realized how I came up with the oh so clever idea of using a snake. And it was that I’d watched a documentary on the deadliest snakes in the world the exact day before I wrote this scene, giving me the perfect inspiration. 

I don’t often watch documentaries, but I had a tedious (and long) task I had to take care of at the time, so wanted something in the background I could listen to while only kind of watching it. It was mere chance that I ended up watching this documentary in particular, but it was certainly serendipitous for my story!