Years ago, my graphic designer daughter Jami, after graduating from the University of Iowa, brought home the semester-end boxes of stuff. I looked through the items she wasn't interested in keeping and found this book from an art course she'd taken. Inside I found the architectural plan of a Carolingian era monastery named St. Gall in Switzerland. It had existed since 719 and was founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Saint Gall built his hermitage. For many centuries it was one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe.The book had pages of drawings of various buildings and the grounds. I was taken with the garden and its listing of vegetables and herbs. I saved the book, knowing I would write about it one day. So, years and years later, when I started The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies, the prologue began in a monastery in the 15th century. A couple of versions later, the location changed to a chateau in Alsace, because of difficulty in researching monastic practices in that early time period.
   I still have the book. I still love the book. But that's how things sometime happen. An image set a spark, but the fire did not light for decades.