I’m a hard worker, a good mom, a loyal friend, and sometimes a pretty decent writer, but that doesn’t mean everything goes smoothly. In fact, sometimes it means nothing goes smoothly and life becomes what life generally is: one endless roller coaster of highs, low, and loop de loos. I’ve been most this year on the roller coaster and the past six months have pretty much been loops and swoops and hair curling drops that put your stomach up in your mouth and leaves it there. Like everyone else, I’ve had sick family members and lost family members and had financial worries and child worries and work worries but what the heck, we can’t cry (too much), we just have to keep going. And that’s what I’ve been doing. Putting one foot in front of the other as I finish one book and begin to hit the road and promote another. My kids hate me being gone. I’m a single mom and the boys’ dad has been in the hospital since April. They don’t want to be left with sitters. I don’t blame them for not wanting to be left with sitters but sometimes we do what we don’t want…

When I was asked to do this chat I politely requested some subject ideas. The ladies at Fresh Fiction very kindly hinted that most writers talk about where they got their latest book/plot idea. Well, my plot ideas usually start with something vague, and then I pull from the myriad of images and happenings that we call life. My latest, “Eye of the Beholder” was inspired by my new neighborhood, the one I’m working on now, as yet untitled, sprung from the loins of a conversation with an old modeling friend in Atlanta, where I grew up. But I do have a subject that I’ve had to sneak up on, set traps for, and hope I capture my elusive prey. Fictional men. Where do we get our male characters and how true are they? For that matter, how true do we want them to be? In one of his fabulously witty books, the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse has one of his characters married to well-known Romance writer Rosie Banks. Rosie’s been asked to write a column for a ladies’ paper about her husband and he exclaims in great distress, “Believe me, or believe me not, Bertie, when I say…

What if and why are two of my favorite things to ask. I’m notorious for asking them in writing and in life. (I think I ask often enough I drive my husband a little nuts, to be honest). I’ve what if’d everything from the idea that we are really all just microscopic beings on the thumbnail of a giant (hey, I was twelve) to the slightly-obsessive emergency kit I packed for the drive through a snowstorm for a family emergency (hey, I’m a California girl… how was I supposed to know those flutters weren’t a storm? and we MIGHT have needed those empty tuna cans and tealight candles for heat… really, we might have). And I ask why more than an eight year old. Just ask my eight year old, she’ll tell you! A psychologist might refer to it as catastrophic thinking (taking what if to its highest degree of drama) but for a writer, it’s mighty handy. After all, the question of “what’s the worst thing that could happen” is what provides me with plot and conflict. Better yet, what if is what keeps the reader turning the pages. When I read a book, I’m always wondering, always asking…

Recently my family and I went on vacation out to Colorado and Utah. We were heading to Colorado first to attend a family reunion. My brother lives at the base of Telluride Ski Mountain in the San Juan Mountains of the Colorado Rockies. Telluride is known as a skiers’ paradise during the winter but during the summer it provides for many exciting activities. It is one of the countries premier festival resort towns. The festivals include the Mountainfilm Festival, Balloon Rally, Bluegrass Festival, Wine Festival, Fourth of July, Telluride Jazz Celebration, Telluride Culinary & Art Festival, Blues and Brews, Telluride Film Festival, Oktoberfest, to name just a few. While the festivals entice many into the town of Telluride, the hiking biking and sightseeing can keep you very busy once your there. As many inhabitants say of the town, they originally went there for the winter skiing but they stayed due to the beautiful summer months. I must say I agree, I have been there to ski many times, in fact, years ago we skied down the isle for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding. But now that I have visited telluride during the summer, I see what really keeps the townies…

Well, not gears, exactly. What I’m talking about is a shift in seasons. I live in New England. That’s in the northeastern part of the United States, for those of you who might not know. ‘New England’ is the name we gave the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, in honor of the English who settled this area in the seventeenth century. My state, Connecticut, is more ‘New England’ in feel than the others, especially our part of it. Whenever I’m in England, especially heading north, I see the strong resemblance. Our roads are narrow and twisting; we have lots of beautiful stone walls; many towns, counties and rivers bear English place-names. We’re also famous for our weather. Coldly beautiful winters. Blossom-infused springs. Hot, colorful summers. Absolutely gorgeous autumns. That’s our most famous season and deservedly so. We have lots of forests and woods in New England. During the autumn, our maples, oaks and hickories, all our hardwood trees, put on the most glorious display imaginable. It’s happening right now. As I write this. I look out the door of my office and see the colors of fall. Flaming reds, brilliant golds, deep purples, hot orange, rich…

Most authors’ romance or mystery series have a definable ‘look’. The novels in the series all bear a striking resemblance in graphics used, or models, style, color palette, and other similarities that ‘brand’ them. Janet Evanovich‘s Stephanie Plum books are instantly recognizable for the bold colors and font selected. You can recognize those puppies across the bookstore! And that’s the point. The cover’s job is to draw readers, and once a rhythm is established, to signal to readers that this another book in a series they love. When I received the cover for the first novel in my ‘Awaiting’ series with Berkley – Awaiting the Moon – I was relieved. I loved it! There are a lot of elements – full moon, wolf, castle, and brooding hero with moody expression – but I think it works. It’s mostly tones of blue… moody and dark. Most importantly, it really does signal what the book is; a historical paranormal werewolf romance. So it perfectly epitomized the series to follow! The heroes of my books are conflicted, moody, and secretive, and the tone is slightly dark and gothic, with secrets and mystery swirling throughout. Whew… that’s a lot to put out there! And…

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…

The heroes of Bonnie Vanak’s Egyptian books stood outside their creator’s house. Jabari of The Falcon & the Dove gave the door a blank look. “What’s wrong?” asked Graham of The Panther & the Pyramid. “I do not know what to do,” Jabari admitted. “I live in a tent.” Kenneth of The Cobra & the Concubine rolled his eyes. “You knock, you bloody fool.” “Do not call my father a bloody fool,” warned Tarik of The Sword & the Sheath. “You once lived in a tent.” “Do you think we should formally announce ourselves?” asked Ramses of The Tiger & the Tomb. “After all, she is not writing and may not want to see us.” The men exchanged glances. “You’re right,” said Thomas of The Scorpion & the Seducer. “We should just walk in and surprise her.” They went inside, walked down a hallway and entered a bedroom. Bonnie was sorting through laundry. Shock dawned in her eyes. “Not you guys again!” “We came here to recharge your creativity,” Thomas explained. “You haven’t written since my story was finished. I’m not published until next May, so you have time to write your next Egyptian historical.” Bonnie laughed. “What time? Come…

I’ve been an avid reader since I was ten years old. Blame it on the elementary school’s reading program (re: read twenty books in a month and win a prize!). I wanted that prize, so I read the twenty books. Along the way, I discovered…I LOVED reading. Since then, I’ve always had my nose stuck in a book, much to my childhood best friend’s annoyance. When I was in tenth grade and my older sister was in twelfth, she brought home an assigned reading book. The fiction book sat in the exact same spot she’d dumped it—on the chair next to the stairs—for days. After a week of passing by this book, I picked it up and read the blurb on the back. A mystery to solve and a love story…hmmm, it didn’t sound too bad. I sat down that night and read the entire book and I loved it! I was so excited about the story that I told my sister all about it, hoping I could get her excited enough to read it herself. While I blabbed on and on, my sister nodded and uh huh’d and smiled. The next day she wrote the book report and turned…

I can’t be the only one. I hope. Are writers the only people who occasionally wake up with this scene in their head, like they were watching a movie while they slept? I do that quite often. I think it’s the best part of being a writer. I can lie in bed and slowly wake up from that dream that has my heart pounding and honestly, with complete sincerity, say I AM WORKING. So, this one summer night, I had a dream. I was in the past, way back like a medieval, and there was this warrior and his bride. She didn’t know him, was very afraid of him – not that I knew why at the time. It was a dream. All I knew was right there, sometime that night, they had to consummate the wedding. Now, for some reason, my brain tends to skip to the good stuff. So I pictured the warm skin and the closeness, his scarred muscles and her fear. There was caressing and gentleness and lots of invasion of private space. Then I went back. Like rewind. I do that. I wanted to know, now that I’d seen these two people together, who were…