The Desperate Druggie was a great story to write. The “love” connection MacFarland has is based on a woman from Mexico who inspired me with visions of adventure, world travel, and unending mystery. And it’s partly inspired by my half-hearted attempts to “try” marijuana when it became legal in Colorado. Unfortunately, I wasn’t desperate enough to become a repeat user.
One of the things I do in my stories is combine elements of my past into a new and different interpretation of events. The Desperate Druggie is a prime example of my attempts to do just that. In Desperate Druggie, I take MacFarland out of his comfortable confines of the Denver landscape to the picturesque and wonderful environs of Cuernavaca, Mexico, a place dear to my heart.
I’m a firm believer that locations are important to a story. The location provides more than a hint of the weather. It presents a clue to the culture and values that might impact the characters in the story. People are influenced by the places around them, and while some aspects of human behavior are universal, many aspects of how we live our lives are shaped by our environment. While it is true that MacFarland didn’t spend enough time in Cuernavaca to be shaped by it’s charm, I must admit that I did.