What inspires you to write? How do you come up with such odd ideas? I have readers who ask this and even fellow authors who wonder how my brain got so off kilter. Sometimes I wonder too, especially when stories take turns into the darkness I never expected.

When I first started writing children's stories during my creative writing class, way back when I thought I wanted to write tales to teach my children to be nice, I took a little break and skimmed through one of my favorite books: "A Field Guide to Demons, Faeries, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits" by Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack. While this book is informative, I also find it a wealth of inspiration and lore on myths from all over the world. Myths fascinate me.

I've loved the Greek god Pan since 6th grade when my teacher assigned him to me to do a speech on. I created a little clay figurine of him and discussed his place in the hierarchy of the gods (in as much as a 6th grader can). Pan, the son of Hermes and a nymph of Arcadia, was god of the woods, a guardian of flocks and shepherds. Half man, half goat, he has cloven hooves, a wooly coat over his lower body and a tail. He also has goat ears. He is rumored to carry a shepherd's staff and play his pipes. Getting back to my Field Guide book, in it, there is a small quote which inspired me.

"The Great God Pan is dead!" It was written by Plutarch in the reign of Tiberius that a sailor heard a mysterious voice call out said quote three times. Further rumor has it that at that very moment, Jesus Christ was born. There is no recollection of Pan's end, and this led to my inspiration and my story.

What if he was still around, trapped perhaps, in a place he couldn't escape from? What if only certain people could hear his pleas for help? What if his imprisonment and eventual freedom came with a catch? In order for him to escape, he would need to find a woman who could love him as he is. I find that commonality in all of humanity--we want someone who can love us unconditionally, who will look past all our faults and still smile upon us and help us up when we fall.

I wrote "The God in the Stone" all those years ago. While it was good at the time, I wrote it before I had the courage to explore the erotica genre. Going back many years later, I stumbled upon it and realized it was a story in need of revision, a love story in need of spice to make it whole. "The God in the Stone" releases this Thursday at Forbidden Publications. It's a short work taking place in eight days' time and every moment is a vacation in the mysteries of modern day Greece and a warm embrace of a love who cannot truly be seen until the very end.

So fellow writers, what inspires you to write your tales?

Find out more about Anastasia Rabiyah by clicking: here.