An Awesome Gift of Time

Welcome to 2011 and a new year; a tantalizing package waiting to be unwrapped, teasing and encouraging us to life and living. As I drank my coffee on the first day of the New Year I couldn’t help wondering what adventures lay ahead. That’s when it occurred to me what an amazing gift the New Year offered; time and lots of it!
Really, think about how much time is contained in that measure we call a year; 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days! I’m not even going into hours and minutes, I’m good with a blank calendar page. Mentally rubbing my hands together I wondered how to best use my new gift? What to do? What goals did I want to make? What dreams to chase?
That’s my favorite thing, chasing dreams (writing fiction) and now thanks to the New Year I have all these blank calendar pages! Yes, there is work to be done, but there is also fun to be had. As I sat, coffee cup in hand watching the day unfold, I thought about the current projects (unfinished stories) and how to move them to the completed file. What new ideas would pop into my head this year?
Creating a work of fiction is one of the most exciting adventures imaginable. From ‘idea’ to ‘the end’, it’s a ride with twists and turns and stalemates; sort of like a roller coaster or river rafting-no matter how many times you do it, each adventure is different. That’s what makes it exciting time and time again.
And yes, while contemplating all this “new” time I had, I got an idea for a story, really a series of stories. It’s the tiniest germ of an idea, but an amazing concept I can’t wait to explore. Of course there will be characters to develop, plotting parties, writing and rewriting. There will be information to gather and a location to find or create.
Okay, got to go, life is busy and my calendar pages are filling up quickly!
Let’s raise a glass to Auld Lang Syne, adventures and this amazing gift of time to enjoy life.
Ella

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2011, it’s going to be a great year!

Welcome to our brand new blog, too. Ella, Wendy, Geri and myself are tickled to be trying our hand at blogging. We don’t really have a gameplan, we just want to make it entertaining and informative. If you have questions whether as a reader or a writer, let us know and we’ll be happy to do our best to answer them.

I have been asked several times where I get my ideas from.  I love that question because my answers usually result in brow-furrowing looks of “Oh, realllly?” J You know, the kind of response that people take a step away from and surreptitiously dial the funny farm? Yep, those kinds of answers.

Okay, maybe it’s not really that bad. My ideas come from a variety of different spots. Once, I dreamed an entire book start to finish. It was a really good book. Even if it’s currently languishing in my To-Be-Revised pile! One of these days it will see the light of day.

Sometimes I will hear part of a phrase and think, hm, I wonder… My friends and family are used to seeing me suddenly have that faraway look in my eye before I start furiously digging for a pen to write down whatever it is I’ve seen. Often a factoid I hear triggers a germ of a story idea. Once, I heard that the President’s limousine carries two pints of his blood just in case. I immediately said “Oh, I could kill the President with that!” Fortunately, I have not received a visit from anyone in a suit about that statement. My immediate thought was if I could have an assassin try to get to the blood supply, switch it and then cause an accident which needed to result in an immediate transfusion – wham, instant assassination. However, I don’t write those kinds of books, so that mostly went away!

The strangest book idea I had came from an address. It was 1200 Midnight Drive. Really. I don’t remember what town, but I remembered that street address. It spawned a short ghost story involving murder, mayhem and romance. It was quite fun to write!

Other ideas are word association games, reading the dictionary (honestly! I find some good fodder just by doing that), brainstorming with my critique partners and good old fashioned brain sweating. It doesn’t always happen easily – more often than not it’s a great deal of work to create a viable idea. Then, you have to ensure the world you create is the right place for your idea and the characters the proper ones to populate it.

Sometimes a publisher sends out a call for a specific kind of story. That's where the idea for Strokes At Midnight (Amazon Kindle Store) came from. The theme was Halloween and the heat level was erotic. I came up with a twist on the classic Cinderella story with my heroine covered only in body paint and posing as a model in a living art collection. At a Halloween party. It involves some *ahem* adult themes. To give you an idea, the tagline is : An erotic short story of fantasy, fetish and forever after!

The inspiration for my book Her Dark Master (Red Sage Publishing) was actually borne from my favorite song in The Phantom of the Opera by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Masquerade is full of emotion both light and dark, promise and retribution. It has genius lines and captivating music. The lyric “Paper faces on parade” was the ultimate spark. From that line, I came up with the story of Victoria Ashford, a lady of the Regency Ton who is betrothed against her will. And not to the man she loves. So, being a sort of rebellious young lady, not to mention very adventurous (after all, she writes scandalously sexy stories for an underground paper) she decides to masquerade as a courtesan and have at least one night of passion with the man she truly wants. It was great fun to write!

So, tell us, what are some of your favorite books and storylines. What do you like to read about?