For those of you who have read my 'Keepers of the Inner Light' (Don't worry, there are no spoilers!), I will tell you where the real-life inspiration for the 'enchanted forest' in the book is.
The forest in the book may be in Louisiana, but I grew up in northern California (a place we discover in the book), and the original 'enchanted forest' is a forest just down the road from my grandparents' house in the San Francisco Bay Area in El Cerrito, where my grandpa Lundblad used to take me and my siblings for walks where he would show us the forest.
Northern California runs through the land on the other side of the In-Between too. 'Mount Also' is an alternate version of Mount Shasta.
(No, live Indricotheriums do not live on Mount Shasta!)
These places still run through my dreams. Naturally, they ran through the dream that became 'Keepers of the Inner Light'. And dreams of these places run through all my writings.
This is the real 'Enchanted forest'.
Perhaps you have an 'Enchanted forest' of your own just like I do!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
P.S. the real-life 'Deer Brook' (the name of our home town in the book) is the street I grew up on in northern California! Deerbrook Drive.
(I could not remember the name of the town in the dream, so I looked for a name that felt right!)