Building a River: Part 1

A Muddy Red River was originally inspired by a chance meeting which in fact was barely worthy to be called such. In 1990 I was working with a volunteer missionary group called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). I was in Thailand where my team visited a high school in a province whose name I can no longer recall. I may have forgotten that name, but I have never forgotten the name of Jam, a beautiful young student to whom I was briefly and perfunctorily introduced.

Her name, her pretty face and her slender feminine body became the inspiration for A Muddy Red River. I never saw her again, and it was not until ten years had passed that I began to write the story: a handwritten draft about an Australian man who falls in love at first sight with a Thai women after a chance meeting. As most romances are, this tale would be full of drama and difficulty. Chris Cornell's lyrics sum it up nicely. "You fall in love from a great height, now the easy part's over."

The manuscript ran out of steam after four chapters so I shelved it. At that time, I was concentrating on short stories, believing I was too busy to attempt a novel, and very uncertain about my ability. The very short life of A Muddy Red River proved the point, and those first four chapters remained hidden away in a drawer for more than ten years. Until...