“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…

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…

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…

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…