This is a question that ever writer hears whenever someone finds out that you make your living writing.  And for every author its a little bit different but at the heart it is the same.  Ideas come from everywhere and everything.

Writers are naturally curious people who spend the majority of their time thinking about the possibilities.  What if?, is one of my favorite things to ask and that is where the seed of all ideas come from.

 My first ideas for stories came to me while I was swimming.  I am not a competitive person–in the sense of sports and beating someone else so the repetitive laps I swam every day for two hours were fodder for my writer’s brain.  I have to be honest here and tell you I had no idea I had a writer’s brain.  I just knew I liked to make up stories while I was swimming laps to entertain myself.

My early forays into story-telling were crude efforts that mainly involved rewriting popular t.v. series of the day to star me!  I guess I was ahead of the curve for fan fiction!!

Lately though my ideas are fed more from the news.  From stories I read or hear and then brought back to myself.  Like my first storytelling attempts I still like a character that I can relate to.  Now my heroines aren’t all me but they do always have something in common with me.

My latest heroine–Nichole in A CASE OF KISS AND TELL shares something that with me and that is the determination to be successful in her career.  While Nichole comes at in a way that is very different to how I did it, I still used my motivation to succeed in her.   Check out an excerpt here.

What are you motivated to do?

I’m in Venice today so can’t check back or comment on this blog today but leave a comment to be entered to win an autographed copy of READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP and a little treat from Venice!