Situations that inspire stories

It's spring here and my azaleas were in full bloom when the recent thunderstorm hit and riddled the blooms with pea-size hail. I was caught in the storm and had difficulty driving in the hail and pouring rain. Even as I did, I concentrated on the sounds and sights and the anxiety and thought about using the situation in a story. That's the life of a writer.

Almost all of my stories begin with a situation. Some come from my own experiences. Others come from the news. In Cowboy Commando, I kept thinking about the policeman who had killed one wife and maybe more and how he manipulated the system to get away with it. that was the beginning of my story idea. From that I added many complications including the fact that her preschool daughter may have witnessed the murder. The story opens with the best friend having kidnapped the daughter to save her from her muderous father and to get some media attention to the crime.

Think of something has happened to you or a freind recently or something you've read in the newspaper that might make a good jumping off spot for a romantic suspense. Any comments?

Starting the Intrigue series

When I started thinking about the first book in the series, I wanted something that would establish the setting and the type of rough and ready heroes I wanted to focus on. I started by reading real-life adventures of Navy SEAL's. The more I read, the more fascinated I became. For my books I wanted to the mystery to involve talents and skills these men would be uniquely qualified for and the type of mystery that the police or regular law enforcement would not be able to take care of. And I wanted a setting to pull in their cowboy roots and values.

I found all that in Cutter Martin and Linney Kingston's story, plus a lot more. Tune in again when I'll talk about setting up the story. And if you know others interested in writing in general, writing romantic suspense or writing for Harlequin Intrigue, please send them to the site.

Your questions are welcome!

Cowboy Commando

The first book in my new series is coming out this month. COWBOY COMMANDO should be in stores aound the second week in the month, or, of course, you can order it from http://www.amazon.com/ or http://www.eharlequin.com/ now.

Gotta love the hunk on the cover.

I got the inspiration for this series from reading Lone Survivor. It's the true story of a SEAL's adventure and made me very proud to be an American and extremely impressed with the bravery and skills of her service men and women. I felt I had to write about them and this is the resulting series. I'll post more later about how I transformed the inspiration into actual stories.