Christie Craig | Questions I Generally Get Asked

Where do you get your ideas?

I sometimes tell people I go to the idea store and rummage through the clearance racks to find a jewel I can make my own. Something a little different. Maybe even a bit like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, something no one else would think about taking home. But I just know if I add the right elements to this discarded idea, I can make it sparkle.

Another way I answer this question is to explain that the idea fairy flew by and accidentally dropped something and I found the treasure stuck to the bottom of my tennis shoe like a piece of gum. You know that ABC gum that is so hard to get off? Well, sometimes it’s as if some fallen idea gets stuck in my head, and my first reaction is, “Oh, hell, no way! Get outta here. There’s a reason the idea fairy dropped your butt. You are a complete reject!” But the idea hangs on and on, until I begin to see the value in it.

Now, neither of those answers are lies. Because heaven knows that sometimes it feels just like that. But I suppose the answer closest to the truth would be that my ideas stem from a collage of experiences, events, and moments that make up my own life. Yes, my life really is that crazy.

2) Most writers will admit that while they write fiction there are some basic truths about themselves in each book. What part of your latest release, GOTCHA! is based on truth?

Well, I really did work at a pizza place. As a matter of fact I wrote about how one very bad day at the pizza place is probably the catalyst for my writing humorous romantic suspense. Let’s just say in one shift, I was accused of robbing the store, had about six Los Angeles police officers pointing weapons at me, had a crazy man pull out a knife large enough to skin Bambi and insist I return the credit card that he stole from someone else, and then had a mean-looking dude in a trench coat pull out another big gun and tell me to get behind the counter. You can read the whole story about that bad day at Dorchester.

3) Do you ever get writer’s block or have days when your muse isn’t with you?

Click here to read the rest.

Kate Kingsbury | Summers Past

Many years ago in my distant past, when I was still living on the southeast coast of England, I spent four memorable summers working for my mother in her small seaside hotel. I laid, waited on and cleared dining tables, cleaned rooms, welcomed guests and hauled heavy luggage up two flights of stairs since we had no elevator. It was hard physical work and long hours, made even longer by my mother’s insistence that I entertain the guests on the piano when all the chores were finally done. All I received for my pains were room and board, and tips that were few and far between. A poor return for the efforts I put in. At least, that’s how it seemed at the time, when I was stumbling exhausted to my bed, only to rise a few hours later and do it all over again.

Looking back on that experience much later in my life, I realized it had given me so much more. I made some wonderful friends, met some bizarre characters, and had adventures that would have made my mother’s hair curl if she had ever found out. Life back then was unpredictable, exciting and fun!

More than twenty years later, when I was searching for an idea for a series, I remembered those days. What better background in which to set my Edwardian mysteries! A seaside hotel, run by a strong woman with a dedicated staff, eccentric characters, wild adventures...it was all there, just waiting for me to spin my tales around it.

I have now written seventeen Pennyfoot Hotel Mysteries, and each one brings back memories of those bittersweet days. As I write each book, I’m reminded that there’s a positive side to everything. All we have to do is look for it, believe in it and make it work for us. May you all have a wonderful year making your own unforgettable memories.

Margay Leah Justice | From Conception to Birth, Or One Book’s Journey to Publication

Ah, the first blush of romance. The first time you see the idea, sitting there in the corner of your mind, trying to get your attention in that inconspicuous manner these ideas sometimes adopt. You look away, convinced that there is no way this idea could possibly go anywhere. It’s just a fluke, a fling. Surely, you’ll forget it by morning. But when you look back, the idea is still there, sitting in the corner, flirting with you. So what’s a harmless little flirtation? You approach the idea cautiously, in a manner you hope is suave and sophisticated, but as you get closer, your excitement rises. Your heart begins to race. You lick your lips in anticipation. It’s even more exciting up close. So you flirt with it, spend the night with it, take it home with you. In the morning, you’re surprised that it’s still with you. After two months, you begin to believe this idea has a future. So you cultivate it, give up sleep for it, nurture it as it grows within you. Soon, what began as a nugget of an idea in your mind blossoms into a full-blown creature. It grows within you, like a fetus in a womb, becoming bigger by the month, more substantial. You can almost feel it move within you; you carry it everywhere, wherever you go, it’s there with you. All of your energy is devoted to it.

After a suitable gestation period, your little nugget of an idea, which you have affectionately begun to call “the book” while you search for the right title, is ready to make its appearance. Your months of labor are about to pay off as you prepare to deliver your book into the capable hands of the publisher who will introduce it to the world. But wait, his assistant has to help you clean it up a bit first and you are struck by the niggling thought, What if my baby’s ugly? What if I put this out there and no one likes it? But with the reassurances of your publisher, you clean the book up and send it back, maybe with a prayer or two, and you wait. Now it’s time for your baby to prove its worth.

As you can tell from my whimsical tale above, writing and publishing, to me, often mimic conception and birth. The stages of both are remarkably similar. There is the courtship period when you are first introduced to the idea that will one day take over your life. Followed by the get-to-know you period during which you decide whether or not the idea has longevity and you want to commit to it. Once you make that commitment, there is the gestation period – I think you can guess what happens here. The idea grows and grows, taking on a life of its own, convincing you that you are mad, suffering from a hormonal imbalance, or both. But in the end, it’s worth it because you deliver a rollicking, three hundred page epic that someone is bound to love – and not because they’re related to you.

So I guess you could say that Nora’s Soul is the first of my literary babies. She is almost two months old now, having made her debut in November, and growing stronger every day. Bringing her to the attention of the public is similar to the care and nurturing of an infant, requiring constant vigilance. Yet the pay off is that people are noticing her, some are cooing over her, and others even want to take her home with them. She may just be crawling now, but soon she will gain her legs and walk on her own – and I will sit back in amazement like any proud mother, thinking, Wow, I can’t believe I created that! And in the grand tradition of mothers everywhere, I will want to create another one, forgetting all of the pains and labor involved in the process. Keep your eyes open for the debut of Nora’s brother, Dante. Thank you for riding along with me on this whimsical journey into my take on writing. I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did.

Margay Leah Justice is the author of Nora’s Soul, from Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Nora’s Soul is currently available on Amazon.com. To read more about Margay and her writing, visit margayleahjustice.com.

Click here for a chance to win a copy of NORA'S SOUL -Today only.

Anne McAllister | Where do you get your ideas?

The most common question writers are asked is: Where do you get your ideas?

Generally the people asking it are perplexed because they can't quite fathom how such ideas come or how they are different from other ideas or what writers can possibly do with them when they do turn up.

Usually I say, "Ideas are everywhere."

But that doesn't really help. So in case you're wondering how things come together, let me just illustrate with my January Harlequin Presents, Antonides' Forbidden Wife.

It certainly didn't come as a full-blown story. No IDEA (in capital letters) popped up in my head. In fact, it wasn't supposed to be a story at all -- because PJ Antonides is not what is commonly considered "a Presents hero." He was a surfer, for heaven's sake!

He made an appearance in an earlier book. As the younger brother of the uptight, determined, severely responsible hero, PJ was by turns annoying, misunderstood, breezy and charming. Pretty much everything his brother was not. He also didn't own any multi-national corporations on the side.

He was also, in that book, called Peter because that's my husband's name and I called him that because I wanted a name I liked but one that I wouldn't be using for a hero (one hero named Peter is all anyone is allowed, I figure).

But I needed a book (I'd just stopped writing the one I had been working on, due to circumstances beyond my control), and one of the higher beings in the Harlequin pantheon of editors suggested Peter's story.

I said, "What story?"

Long pause on the trans-atlantic telephone line.

"He's a surfer!" I said.

"I thought you left him running the company," she replied, "when Elias went off to build boats." There was a sniff of disapproval about Elias's behavior.

"Well, yes," I said. And already the wheels were turning. I had left Peter running the company. But he was pretty much an unknown quantity as far as the family went. They'd barely seen him in ten years. He'd gone off to Hawaii and rarely came back. He'd even left his old identity behind. He'd become PJ out there. (Tricky guy. He obviously had designs on becoming a hero).

I wondered what other secrets he might have.

No secrets, he told me. Just a wife.

A wife? Where did that come from?

I have no idea. I guess it was mulling over what shocking revelation might create an interesting set-up and provide a stepping stone for some conflict. Yeah, a wife would definitely do that!

But where did he get her? Hawaii, apparently, because that's where he'd gone. Who was PJ likely to meet in Hawaii?

And just when I needed her, Ally Maruyama waltzed into the book.

Ally was a combination of several girls I'd known growing up in California -- daughters of mixed cultural backgrounds who had to try to deal with "old world" expectations within the world they wanted to live.

But why did PJ marry her? And where was she now? And what had brought her back?

All these questions demanded ideas to answer them. They were questions that took a lot of thought -- a lot of playing around with who these people were, what mattered to them, what drove them.

And then, of course, I had to ask who was Ally now, so many years later?

There were, as I said, lots of ideas involved in discovering the answers to that.

And that's where another bit of my own background came in. One of my best friends, growing up, has become a talent fiber artist. Melody Crust has won awards, written books, taught scads of workshops. Her career informed Ally's. I read Melody's book, A Fine Line, trying to see it through Ally's eyes.

I didn't know a lot about fiber art. I'm not an intensely visual person. But one of the joys of writing, as Silhouette author Karen Sandler said the other day at the Harlequin Open House, is learning about so many different things in the course of research.

Melody's vocation was my starting point. Ally's career and Ally's personality grew from there.

That's what most ideas are -- they are beginnings. They are catalysts. But alone they are no more than sparks. They need to ignite interest, research, discussion, and ultimately they need to create more questions and more answers until the story begins to develop and, eventually, takes on a life of its own.

And when it does, the characters come up with their own ideas -- and it's all I can do to keep up with them!

Anne McAllister
www.annemcallister.com/

Lori Handeland | Where do you get your ideas?

By far the question I’m asked most often is “Where do you get your ideas?” Not only by interviewers but by readers and by friends and family. I get the impression that those who know me best can’t believe I come up with all the creepy, violent “weird” stuff without some help. Which I guess is a compliment.

I get my ideas in several ways. For instance, from something I’ve read. The concept for Any Given Doomsday came to me several years ago when I was researching another book and came across the legend of the Grigori, and it fascinated me. How the Grigori, or fallen angels, came to earth to watch the humans, then mated with the daughters of men and produced a supernatural race known as the Nephilim.

I bought a bunch of books on prophesy, Revelation, angels, demons and read them whenever I had the chance and an idea started to nag at me—one of those ideas that captures an author and won’t let go. In the world of The Phoenix Chronicles, the Nephilim have been here since the beginning of time, wearing human faces, but beneath they are the monsters of legend—vampires, shape shifters and more.

I had long wanted to write a series with a continuing character—a cross between Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake—two of my favorite heroines in fiction. I had the vague idea that my heroine would be psychic; I wanted the series to be set in my hometown of Milwaukee.

I came up with the character of Elizabeth Phoenix, however I had to admit to myself that the zaniness of Stephanie would never work for Liz. Liz is dark, dangerous; she does not screw around. If she does, people die.

I continued to build on Liz’s world little by little, uncovering her background as a foster child, meeting her foster mother Ruthie, her childhood love Jimmy and her mentor, the Navajo witch, Sawyer.

Liz discovers there is a secret society that fights these supernatural creatures, and she’s just been put in charge of the ground troops. One little problem—the end of the world has been set in motion—doomsday is right around the corner—and she has no idea what she’s doing.

Sometimes an idea comes from someone I meet in my travels. For instance, when I decided to set the second trilogy of my Nightcreature Novels in New Orleans, my husband and I took a three day tour. I’d been to New Orleans twice before, but I needed more specific knowledge.

The first day we were there, we ended up in an Irish bar off of Bourbon Street. The place had a terrific juke box that played Patsy Cline. The bartender was a gorgeous red head from Boston whose name was Diana.

The bar appears in Crescent Moon as Kelly’s, where Patsy Cline sings “Crazy” while the heroine, a red head named Diana, asks pertinent questions of the bartender and the patrons.

At times I get an idea from my own life. The little boy in my Harlequin Superromance Leave it to Max is very similar to a little boy who used to live at my house (he grew into a very large, bearded young man when I wasn’t looking). A lot of my son’s best lines ended up coming out of Max’s mouth. My little guy always opened all the doors and cabinets in every room he was in. You never knew what might be in there. He was accident-prone big time.

The day I went to the fed ex box to mail the manuscript (about a little boy with a broken arm who got into all sorts of trouble) I returned home to a phone call from the school informing me that my version of Max had one too. That was kind of creepy. My husband begged me to “never put him in a book.”

Sometimes I get ideas from a line in a magazine, newspaper, an image in a movie or a TV show, a dream. I even got one once from a license plate. It was pretty cool.

I’m always interested in other people’s thought processes so tell me—Where do you get your ideas? Where do you think writers get their ideas? What have you heard from others? Share!

Lori Handeland
www.lorihandeland.com

Bella Andre | The Idea Bank

Have you ever read a really great book and asked yourself, "How'd she come up with that fantastic idea?" I know I have. Which is why I thought it'd be fun to ask myself the same question. Here goes:

TAKE ME (in which a full-figured heroine gets the guy in Italy): I had a dream about a woman who had lusted after a guy her whole life, but he'd never noticed her. And then one day, the tables turned completely, and he had to chase her. Once he caught her, while in a very passionate embrace, he said, "You're mine, all mine." MINE, ALL MINE was the working title of the book - and the title I sold with. The dream gave me the theme. From there I had to figure out characters and plot.

TEMPT ME, TASTE ME, TOUCH ME (three women on a road trip to the Wine Country find love with three local men): I had just finished watching the move "Sideways" with my husband when I turned to him and said, "Wouldn't it be interesting to flip that movie on its ear and make it a girl's road trip through the wine country instead?"

RED HOT REUNION (old flames reconnect at their ten year college reunion): I had just gotten the invite to my ten year college reunion. ;-) And I thought, what if two young lovers who parted badly met again where they originally fell in love? Especially if the heroine is desperate to escape her life.

GAME FOR ANYTHING (first Bad Boys of Football book): Swear to god this one came to me in the shower! I suddenly thought, what if an image consultant is brought in to clean up a star quarterback's act - but it turns out they have a secret past?

GAME FOR SEDUCTION (second Bad Boys of Football book): The hero of Game For Anything is quick with the lines, almost flashy. I knew the hero of this book would be his opposite - tall, dark, and handsome, of course, but a man of fewer words. Silent and steady. But who to match him with? And what kind of situation could I put him in that would be both fun and sexy? My sister-in-law, Kathy, came through for me one day when she said "Older hero, younger heroine? What about a Bull Durham story with a love triangle?" Once she said that, the story started to flow like crazy.

WILD HEAT (first book in my Hotshots: Men of Fire romantic suspense series, coming May 2009): My agent and I spend a lot of time on the phone chatting about ideas. For years she's been saying, "What about firefighters?" I started researching different kinds of firefighters and once I found out about Hotshots - elite wildland firefighters who fight the fires everyone else runs from - I knew I had to write about them. They thrive on a adrenaline! They're bound by the brotherhood. As far as I'm concerned, they're the SEALS of firefighting. From there, it wasn't difficult to find the right story about an arson investigator and the lead Hotshot, who also happens to be her primary suspect for a wildfire raging through Lake Tahoe.

EXTREME HEAT (2nd book in the Hotshots series, coming late 2009): I'm writing this one right now. It's got a lot of Man vs. Wild elements.

Some ideas certainly come faster than others. The dream that turned into TAKE ME, for example, was a much-appreciated gift. Where and how do you get your best ideas?

Please drop by my website and blog at www.bellaandre.com/blog! And be sure to sign up for my contest (I'm giving away a beautiful necklace and earring set) before the end of the month.

;-) Bella Andre
http://www.bellaandre.com/

GAME FOR SEDUCTION ~ out now!
GAME FOR ANYTHING ~ Cosmo's Red Hot Read!

Lisa Black | SERENDIPITY AND THE WRITING LIFE

Any writer, I’m sure, has had the experience of a great idea striking them while engaged in an activity that had nothing to do with writing and nothing to do with whatever plot their minds were currently worrying at—like being at your child’s ballet recital and noticing the teacher’s son, pressed into doubling as the sound engineer, hustling back and forth trying to weed that static out of the speaker precariously mounted stage right…suppose this were a ballet competition and not just a chance for parents to see why they’ve been writing checks all year…a particularly competitive stage parent might get very upset over a break in their kid’s music quality…maybe even kill….

Or you’ll be teaching your daughter to knit, guiding her little fingers over the pointy edge of the needle and you realize what a good murder weapon it would be…knitting isn’t as common as it once was but what if there were a group of knitters, a club…easily concealed, innocuous in a normal setting…untraceable? Do knitting needles have serial numbers?

Or just as you are writing the scene where Dudley runs his rival down in the street and wonders how to conceal the damage to his car, a commercial comes on for a revolutionary new car body with flexible bumpers…get a dent and it pops right out.

With me and my latest book, Takeover, this happened a lot. Just as I’d be mulling over some aspect of my plot—in which my forensic scientist Theresa becomes involved in a robbery/ standoff where her homicide detective fiancé is one of the hostages—someone or something would come along and prod me into the next few chapters.

Not the basic plot, which is a robbery gone bad: Theresa goes against the flashy negotiator by giving the robbers something they want in order to free her wounded and dying fiancé. I am embarrassed to report that it grew out of a recurring daydream about gorgeous Rory Cochrane on CSI Miami. The scene never occurred on CSI Miami, but somehow my brain synapsed the cute guy and the brilliant sunlit street and the desperate situation together and worked at it until I had it perfect, not that thoughts involving Rory Cochrane were difficult to return to. Just a daydream. (Okay, fantasy, I admit it, are you happy now?)

From there, I happened to go to the Sleuthfest convention in Fort Lauderdale and happened to attend the Sisters In Crime dinner and happened to sit next to an older man and his wife, people unknown to me. In the course of making polite conversation (my mother did teach me a few manners, despite what others may tell you) it turned out the man had been a New York police officer for years, many of them on the hostage rescue squad, and he had written an article on negotiation that was still used to teach classes at the FBI Academy. Through him I tracked down a copy of it, which I used and listed in my bibliography in the book.

Then, I was sitting on the couch watching TV with my husband (a scene which, unfortunately for our waistlines, occurs all too frequently in my house) when a commercial for the 2006 Harrison Ford movie Firewall aired. I sat up and said aloud, “I won’t make my robbery at an ordinary bank. I’ll make it at the Federal Reserve bank.” Having walked past the Fed in downtown Cleveland many times on my way to the library, I knew it was a large and distinct location. What I didn’t know was that there are only 12 in the country and that a Fed is completely different from your corner savings and loan, so that no one in their right mind would rob a Federal Reserve. This, however, eventually worked in my favor, adding another layer of things-are-not-what-they-seem to the story.

Of course the movie Firewall has absolutely nothing to do with the Federal Reserve. Perhaps the wiring in my brain has a few shorts.

These facts and ideas and half-baked scenes were floating around in my head when we went over our friends’ house for a party one evening. We live in Cape Coral, Florida, so that while my husband and I are in our 40s, most of our friends are retired. I like partying with retirees. They cook well, don’t cancel because they couldn’t find a babysitter, never show up ‘fashionably late’ and have lived long enough to have an endless supply of interesting stories. One such man had been an elevator repairman, one of those guys allowed into even high-security buildings because, of course, no one wants to take the stairs. He could tell me quite a bit about the layout of the Cleveland Fed. Another person at this same party had worked in a bank for all of her professional life and as an examiner for the latter portion of it. She had been to the Fed many times in the course of her work. I had been struggling to come up with a significant title and asked for any inside terminology regarding banks, or robberies, or the Fed. At first she said no, thought about it, got another drink and said, “Well, when we had the kind of robbery where the guy waited in the parking lot for the first employee to show up in the morning, usually the manager, and walked them in at gunpoint to open the safe, we would refer to that as a Morning Glory. When there was a single robber, he was a Lone Gunman, and when there were two or more, we called that a Takeover.”

You never know where or when this kind of help will fall into your lap. Talk to the people you meet, and ask questions. Lots of questions. Even if you don’t even know yet what it is you want to know, ask, talk, and most of all, listen.

Oh, and go to parties.

Lots of parties.

Lisa Black
http://www.lisa-black.com/

Cathy Lamb | Deadlines

I have 15 days to go.

Fifteen days until my deadline for my next book, Henry’s Sisters.

This means that – except for a short jaunt to drop a kid off at school on the east coast – I will spend most of my other days muttering to myself, half-crazed, almost sleepless, and teetering on desperate. I will talk to my characters out loud. They will talk back. They will throw things in my mind and screech and use poor language and make me laugh. I will laugh out loud at inappropriate times at my characters. I will try to avoid this inappropriate laughter during church.

It is most likely I will be in pajamas until 4:00. I won’t wash my hair much and I’ll probably smell stale. I will eat too much and gain weight, that is a given. I will be edgy and mentally hyperventilating.

This is typical for deadline time and I am almost used to this rollicking insanity. When the book is turned in I will go and drink. No, not bottles of rum, you silly. We’re talkin’ decaffeinated mochas with piled up whip cream.

I love to write and I love to read. If my arms suddenly fell off, I am convinced I would write with my nose (Large enough, by the way, to hunt and peck keys, do not be fooled by the photo.)

I am often asked where I get my ideas for my writing…I get zinged by ideas almost every time I venture out of my house. Before I wrote Henry’s Sisters I had two images in my head: Mermaids and a cane. Mermaids and two canes are in this book. I like mermaids and I’d heard about a cool, colorful cane, and things took off from there. There are also three sisters and a brother in Henry’s Sisters. In my family there are three sisters and a brother. See. Creepy.

Where else do I get my ideas? Well, this will sound odd, but if I stare too long at a person, and I’m in character – building mode, I can feel a story formulating in my head all about them. That’s odd, I know. And, if I ever meet you and I stare at you too long, you now know what I’m doing. It would be quite fair of you to yell, “Stop that, this instant, Cathy, you odd freak,” And, I will. (Probably).

I live in suburbia. Now, sometimes suburbia feels like a tight box so I go to Portland. Going to Portland can set my mind on fire for days. The cool people, the pace, wacky high heels, a crumbling brick building, the smell of beer, someone pushing a shopping cart, even the light or a peek at the river can do it for me. Heading to the beach or the mountains offers huge inspiration. In fact, all my stories have been at least partially inspired by both. Julia’s Chocolates is set outside of Sisters, Oregon. Suzanna’s Stockings is set in Depoe Bay, Oregon. The Last Time I Was Me is set in Welches, Oregon, and Henry’s Sisters is set in Hood River.

Hope you like my books…feel free to write to me via my website at any time. I answer all letters unless they’re mean, and that’s the truth.

Cheers and happy reading.
Cathy Lamb
www.cathylamb.net

The Last Time I Was Me, May, 2008
Julia’s Chocolates, May, 2007
Comfort and Joy with Fern Michaels. Suzanna’s Stockings, November, 2007
Henry’s Sisters, May, 2009

T. Lynn Ocean | Putting Your Subconscious Mind To Work For You

People often ask authors where they get their ideas. The answer for me is, I'm not sure. But I do know that I'd never have a writing career if it weren't for my subconscious mind (SM).

Everyone has this amazing tool at their disposal. Scientists still don't understand quite how it works, but they do know that we all have a duality of minds: your consciously thinking mind, and your subconscious mind. Whether you are creating a character that people will want to read, composing a song, or trying to solve a dilemma at the office, your SM can do the work for you. It's true!

Ever been with friends discussing a movie or a song, and you can't remember the name of the lead actor? "It's on the tip of my tongue!" you might say. Finally, you give up. The next morning it hits you. You remember the name. Well, folks, that is your SM at work. It's a very simple example, but proof that your mind can problem-solve while you are not consciously thinking about the problem.

There are two basic things to remember about your SM. First, it never sleeps. It's always working, regardless of what you are doing. Second, your SM has no filters or screens. It's like the mind of an innocent child and will soak up everything without prejudice.

So, how do you put your SM to work for you? Very easily. You must fuel, or feed it! For example, when I'm working on a new character, I will sketch out all the basics. A background, including family and career. Physical description. Accent and manner of speaking. Oddities or quirks, such as a man who always jingles the change in his pocket when he's nervous. Next, I'll think about the plot and how the character fits in. And then it's time to feed my SM. If my character were the owner of a bakery for example, I'd quiz some pastry chefs, subscribe to a trade magazine, and watch cooking shows. If my character was a sleazy landlord, I'd read some articles about fraud and scams, maybe interview a property manager or two, and check out the real estate market where the book takes place. Bottom line? Go on road trips. Talk to people. Read applicable magazines. Attend pertinent continuing education classes or seminars. Brainstorm with friends. AND THEN FORGET ABOUT IT! One of the best times to put your SM to work for you is just before bedtime. Forget Leno or Letterman and take fifteen minutes to review your notes or read that trade magazine. Go to sleep thinking about your project. You'll be amazed at what you come up with.

Once you begin to utilize the power of your SM, your characters will become multi-dimensional and real. They'll begin telling you what they would say or do in a given situation. Your plots will suddenly come together in a way that makes perfect sense. That song you've been trying to compose will vividly spring to life. And that problem at work? You'll suddenly have the solution, and in hindsight, you'll probably wonder why you didn't think of it sooner.

Oh yeah. One more thing. If you're going to tap into the power of your SM, there are a few rules. You must avoid negative people. You must keep an open, welcoming mind. And you must try to remain stress-free. Like everything else, your subconscious mind performs best when nurtured.

It's how I plan, plot, and write. SOUTHERN FATALITY has just been re-released in paperback, SOUTHERN POISON is now out in hardcover, and I just sent in the manuscript for the third in this mystery series. Jersey Barnes is such a fun character to write… I just love it when the characters start telling you what they're going to do next!

T. Lynn Ocean
www.tlynnocean.com/

Allison Brennan | Where do you get your ideas?

That's the single most common question I receive when I speak to reading groups. The thing is, it's not an easy question to answer. There's not one repository of ideas, nor can I point to one source of inspiration. My stories come from multiple sources--snippets of ideas, views, sounds, articles--that simmer in the slow cooker of my muse. Then wham! I have the story beginning and I start writing.

Take my current trilogy. "An earthquake at San Quentin Prison precipitates the escape of several death row inmates." Sounds easy, right? Well . . . it took me weeks to come up with the premise. The only thing I knew when I started KILLING FEAR (Feb 08) was that Detective Will Hooper, the partner of my heroine in SPEAK NO EVIL (Feb 07) was the hero.

An article I read mentioned some California legislators talking about selling San Quentin--437 acres of prime real estate on the San Francisco Bay. I remembered that in SPEAK NO EVIL, I'd had Will testify at an appeal hearing against Theodore Glenn, a killer on death row who Will had put away seven years before for murdering four strippers. I re-read the scene where Will tells Carina he has to leave while they're in the middle of an investigation, and there was maybe two paragraphs about Glenn. But already he intrigued me, and I wondered how I could get him out of prison.

It's rare to escape from San Quentin. I heard a news report about California sending prisoners to other states for incarceration because of prison overcrowding. I wondered if Glenn would be a candidate for transport--but thought it would be too contrived. Train wreck, plane crash, bunch of killers survive. Been there. I researched the history of San Quentin just to become familiar with it, trying to see if there was at least a possible way to escape--even if it wasn't probable. Then I came across a seismic report about the structural integrity of San Quentin buildings and all of the sudden wham! I had it. Earthquake.

A dozen prisoners escape and most are caught off page in KILLING FEAR, except of course Theodore Glenn who returns to San Diego to seek revenge on all those who put him in prison--including Will Hooper who arrested him and Robin McKenna, the former stripper who testified against him and had been Will's lover.

In TEMPTING EVIL (on sale now), two killers are trapped in a secluded resort during a blizzard in Montana, and one of them is obsessed with romance writer Joanna Sutton who is seeking peace at her family lodge four years after the murder of her husband and son.

And in the upcoming PLAYING DEAD (Oct 08), the one innocent escapee--Tom O'Brien, an ex-cop who was responsible for capturing most of the remaining fugitives--has to convince his daughter that he didn't kill his wife--her mother--and to help him find the real killer. Claire, who at 14 testified against her father, is now a no-nonsense fraud investigator who doesn't believe her father is innocent, but her curiosity compels her to at least follow-up on his claims.

The premise alone isn't the whole story--just the spark that gets me started. Similar disparate threads and ideas get woven together to create the hero and heroine, their individual histories, and different plot points.

It's impossible to point to any one thing that ignites the story, so being asked Where do you get your ideas is never an easy question to answer, but I guarantee every book has a different backstory. And that’s part of the fun of writing--I never know where my ideas really come from, I just hope and pray they keep coming!

Allison Brennan




Allison's website (and trailer for Killing Fear): http://allisonbrennan.com/
Radio Ad for Tempting Evil: http://allisonbrennan.com/index2.html
Excerpts: http://allisonbrennan.com/books.html

Blogs:
Personal: http://allisonbrennan.com/blog
Group: http://murdershewrites.com/
Group: http://fogcitydivas.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/allisonbrennan1

Lois Winston| Write What You Know?

"Where do you get your story ideas?"

"Are any of your characters based on yourself or people you know?"

The above are the two most frequently asked questions I hear from readers. The third most frequently asked question is, “How do you research your sex scenes?” This question is never asked by someone who has read my books, always asked by a male, and usually is asked each year at my husband’s company Christmas party. The question is always preceded by over-imbibing on the part of the buffoon asking the question (usually to the embarrassment of the long-suffering wife at his side) and is always followed by a wink-wink, nudge-nudge from said buffoon. Depending on my mood, I will either glare, scowl, look down my nose at the fool (not an easy task for this vertically challenged writer,) or offer his wife a sympathetic eye roll.

But I digress (Can you blame me? What are those dimwits thinking???)

Anyway, there’s a writing axiom that states, write what you know. To some extent this is a sound guideline to follow, but it’s also extremely limiting. I have a very good friend who writes stories populated with vampires, werewolves, selkies, and other assorted weird creatures of the paranormal world. My friend is neither a vampire, a werewolf, nor a selkie, and I have it on good authority that she’s never met any such creatures, either. So obviously this very successful author is not writing what she knows from first-hand experience.

In LOVE, LIES AND A DOUBLE SHOT OF DECEPTION I wrote about secrets and revenge and the lengths some people will go in order to bury the former and achieve the latter. The plot is ripe with scandal. Drugs. Violence. Blackmail. Political machinations. Attempted murder. My heroine is a wealthy widow whose abusive, cocaine-snorting, deceased husband was about as low as a low-life can get.

Write what you know?

Hmm...I’ve never done drugs (sinus meds don’t count), never blackmailed anyone, never tried to kill anyone, never been involved in politics except to vote, and my husband is the complete opposite of my heroine’s husband. The guy even still helps me on with my coat and opens doors for me after all these years! Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m also far from wealthy. Very far. As a matter of fact, if the economy doesn’t pick up soon, I may be facing retirement living in a cardboard box, but at least I’ll have my darling husband to keep me warm.

So no, the characters in LOVE, LIES AND A DOUBLE SHOT OF DECEPTION are neither based on me nor anyone I know, and the story line is far from autobiographical. However, some of the plot lines in the book are loosely based on actual events, just not ones involving me.

I get my ideas for my characters and my plots from the world around me. I’m a die-hard news junkie who has always believed that truth is stranger than fiction. That belief is reaffirmed every time I pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news. I’ll hear a news byte or read an article, then give the event a “what if” spin. The voices in my head take over from there, and the next thing I know, I’ve got the plot for another book.

I do have a confession to make, though. In TALK GERTIE TO ME, Connie, my heroine’s mother, develops an outrageous craft project involving plaster of Paris and a certain body part (No, not that body part! My, you all have dirty minds!) Many years ago I knew a woman who came up with the idea and wanted to demonstrate it on The Tonight Show. Unfortunately, Johnny Carson’s people weren’t interested. But in TALK GERTIE TO ME (with proper credit being given to the creator of the concept on the acknowledgements page,) David Letterman’s people are. Connie winds up demonstrating the craft on Late Night, using a certain sexy movie star from Down Under as her guinea pig assistant.

Write what you know? Hmm…to some extent -- with a little help from those voices in my head.
* * *
Award-winning author Lois Winston writes humorous, cross-genre, contemporary novels and romantic suspense. She often draws upon her extensive experience as an artist and crafts designer for much of her source material. Her first book, TALK GERTIE TO ME, was released in 2006 and was the recipient of the Readers and Bookbuyers Best Award, took second place in both the Beacon Awards and Laurel Wreath Awards, and was nominated for both a Reviewers’ Choice Award and a Golden Leaf Award. Her second novel, LOVE, LIES & A DOUBLE SHOT OF DECEPTION, was a June 2007 release and so far has been nominated for a Golden Leaf Award. Lois contributed to DREAMS & DESIRES, VOL. 1 and 2 and is a contributor to HOUSE UNAUTHORIZED, a November 2007 release. When not writing or designing, you can find Lois trudging through stacks of manuscripts as she hunts for diamonds in the slush piles for the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com/.

Lois Winston

Trish Wylie | Do you get your ideas from real life?

Authors are constantly asked where they get their ideas from. It’s probably the most commonly asked question. And here in the UK and Ireland Mills & Boon (Harlequin’s UK division) is celebrating it’s Centenary, so we’re seeing a lot more press coverage - hence I’ve been asked this question about a half dozen times in the last week alone.

One of the next things they asked was ‘Do you get your ideas from real life?’ to which I consistently answered with a burst of laughter and ‘I WISH!’

But that’s probably not the real answer. Because the initial spark of inspiration *does* come from real life and the things we see and hear around us every day; a song, a movie we hated the end of, the sight of two people talking in a street café, a photograph that captures a moment we want to know more about. And then a chain reaction begins. The who, what, when, where and why starts to find answers inside our heads – the part of our brain in charge of creativity rubbing its hands with glee and setting to work with gusto! (We hope…)

For many it’s the best part of the job – that magical period when ideas come together and characters are born. It’s the putting it into words that makes it *work*. Add deadlines and sometimes it can even become a chore. But then there are so many jobs out there that lack that initial period of magic, aren’t there? I think that’s what makes it such a great way to make a living and what carries us through the harder stuff…

Well that and the readers of course! Because readers are just as capable of seeing that magic on the page, forming different images in their minds, adding personal experiences and how they felt at a certain point of their life to what they’re reading to create a completely original perception pf each book. And I kinda LOVE that. It’s why my February book for the Harlequin Romance line – Her One And Only Valentine – is dedicated to my Readers; the dream makers.

That’s what they are to me. By reading romance and sustaining the genre the way they do they allow me to do what I love to do. And by allowing themselves to get lost in a place where magic still exists they help celebrate love and hope in a world where it be so very over-shadowed by terrible things. So what is it you enjoy about romance novels? Is it that little touch of hope it leaves you with, the escapism, the way some plots make you think? Or was there a book that particularly touched you or helped you through a difficult period in your life?

To find out more about my books, where I got my ideas from and the Emerald Isle I call home you can visit me at My Website (http://www.trishwylie.com/) or my Blog (www.trishwylie.blogspot.com/)

Go n-eírí an bóthar leat.

Trish

Ann Roth | Fodder for the Creative Mill

People are always asking, Where do you get your ideas? Oh honey, if they only knew! Here are some of my favorite idea generators.

Eavesdropping. I do that a lot. It's easy, fun, and good for getting those creative juices flowing. Also, when friends say something intriguing, I let them know that some day their story or clever word usage could end up in a book. Fictionalized of course, so that often they won't recognize themselves. With strangers.... they'll never know.

Observation. People watching is such a kick. Even more fun is making up stories about those you watch. Why are they behaving that way? Who are the people they are with? I'll bet even non-writers do this.

TV, radio, music and the movies. I've been known to take a premise or a snippet of and run with it. The end results never look remotely like the show from which I drew my inspiration.

Magazines and newspapers. Tons of great stuff there. Especially those advice columns and the stories of personal triumphs over bad situations.

And of course, life itself. Something happens to me or a friend or relative, or a friend's friend, and I get to thinking, What if?

I'm sure there are other ways of generating ideas. If you know of any that aren't mentioned here, please share.

Ann
http://www.annroth.net/
Mitch Takes A Wife, August 2007
All I Want for Christmas, November 2007

Patti O'Shea - A Peek Behind the Book

Ideas come to authors at different times and in different ways. Sometimes one flash is enough to trigger an entire story. That's what happened with THE POWER OF TWO. I was staring out the window at my day job when the word "nanotechnology" came into my mind. All I had to do was ask, well, what about it? and the next thing I knew, I had my heroine, the hero, and the way they were tied to each other.

Other times, nothing more than a concept pops into my head and I'll write down what I have and file it away for some day. Only some day never seems to come--except with my latest book.

IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR started with a dream I had more than ten years ago. I knew the hero's name--Deke Summers--I knew he was under a magical curse, and I was aware of what that curse was, but there was no heroine and no story. I wrote down the concept in one sentence and moved on. I loved the idea and hoped that some day I'd have a plot to go with it, but I didn't hold out much hope because I have file drawers full of ideas waiting to be used.

Time marched on, and while I didn't exactly forget Deke, I didn't think about him often. Then it happened. December 2003 a woman appeared in my head and started talking about her people. (It's true, I hear voices. It's a good thing I'm a writer.) Anyway, this character wouldn't share her name, not until she'd spent weeks telling me all about a magical society called the Gineal. Only after that did she let me know that her name was Ryne Frasier and she was a troubleshooter.

When a character comes in and talks to me, I know I'll be writing their story, but I had a problem. While I had all kinds of facts about her people, I didn't have a hero for Ryne and I didn't have a clue what her story was. It's funny I remembered Deke at that moment--or maybe it isn't. Once I realized he and his curse belonged with her, the story began to flow--for a couple of chapters.

I could see the opening of the story clearly and how tough Ryne was--and how vulnerable and lonely. I could see her relationship with her sister and how both of them were hampered by their pasts, And I could see how Ryne and Deke met and how that would play into their relationship. But I couldn't seem to get a handle on Deke beyond his curse and how much he hated it. Then I found the picture.

The man was gorgeous and he had attitude written all over his face. This guy totally fit Deke and that quickly, that easily, I had his personality. Deke is a horrible smart aleck and one of his favorite things in the world is to push people's buttons--especially Ryne's. She's so serious, so intense, and he likes to see the heat in her eyes so much that he can't help himself. He drove her crazy. Ryne was trained to control her emotions--she has to in order to function as a magical troubleshooter--but she had very little self-command when it came to Deke.

There was one other thing about this book that made it different for me--I knew the ending almost from the start. It's the first time I've had a clue how one of my stories would close before I was past the halfway mark, and usually it's deeper into the book than that. It was pretty darn cool to have that in my head from the beginning, but I'm not counting on being that lucky again any time soon.

Each book has a different story on how it came to be, but I thought I'd give you a little peek behind Midnight Hour. If you have any questions about any of my books, feel free to ask. I'm happy to talk about my stories.

Patti's Website - http://www.pattioshea.com/
Patti's Blog - http://pattioshea.blogspot.com/
Patti's MySpace Page - http://www.myspace.com/patti_oshea
In the Midnight Hour Video - http://www.pattioshea.com/midnight_video.shtml