I’m so thrilled to have the awesome Ginger Scott on the blog today sharing the stories behind her latest novel, THIS IS FALLING. Ginger and I have a lot in common. Our passion to help families living with Autism. Our journalism backgrounds. And our love of a good story! Her latest release is one to love! Make sure you check it out!
The Stories Behind The Story – THIS IS FALLING by Ginger Scott
THIS IS FALLING is about first loves, overcoming tragedy, finding courage, forging friendships and…baseball. Okay, so maybe it’s only a little about baseball. But it’s enough about baseball. I’ve been dying to write a story with a baseball thread, because as much as I love the purity of high school football (the backdrop for my debut WAITING ON THE SIDELINES), my veins bleed Rawlings leather and warning track dust. Baseball is just plain romantic. It can’t help itself. It’s one of the hardest games to play, impossible to master, and sexy as hell to watch. And I hope readers fall in love with Nate Preeter, my MR. BASEBALL, as much as I’m in love with the game.
There are a lot of little (and a few big) things that inspired me throughout this story, and I thought it might be fun to share some of those secrets—the story-behind-the-story if you will. So I give you Seven Fun Facts about THIS IS FALLING.
- The Preeter brothers were inspired by two brothers from Arizona State University—the Poole brothers. I won’t get too deep into their story, but Keith Poole was one hell of a wide receiver, and his brother Marc was paralyzed from the waist down. I worked at the college paper and knew their story well—often seeing Marc on the sidelines, his brother and best friend making a game-winning catch on the field. Their story is one that’s unbelievably inspiring, and it stuck with me for years. I didn’t know them well, having met Keith a handful of times and quoted him once or twice for an editorial. But they made an impression. The Preeter boys aren’t the Pooles. But they were on my mind.
- Nate Preeter isn’t any one person, but rather several sort of mashed together to make a hell-of-a sexy ballplayer. He’s part Sun Devil inspired with a touch of Buster Posey, and I made him from Louisiana because my cousin’s from there, and he won a college world series at LSU (and two MLB ones with the Cardinals and Giants – see if you can guess who he is ;-).
- Nate’s a catcher, because catchers are, quite honestly and to steal a line from my book, “the heart and the soul of the team.” Plus, Buster Posey is a catcher, and Buster Posey is the bomb. Have I mentioned I like Buster Posey?
- I had ASU’s Packard Stadium in my head when I described the fields at McConnell University.
- McConnell is loosely modeled after Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. It’s just smaller—more…elite. But the town is very much Stillwater.
- There’s a really great bar in THIS IS FALLING called Sally’s. If you know Stillwater, it’s a little bit of a shout-out to Eskimo Joe’s. I named it Sally’s after my bassett hound.
- And number seven…there is one prank—the prank above all pranks—that plays out in THIS IS FALLING. I married a man who actually did that to someone;-)
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