If you haven’t listened to it already, I have a new podcast up. I’m discussing what irritates me the most about vampire movies and fiction *smile* You can listen at the following places:

SPOTIFY ~ PODBEAN~ APPLE PODCASTS ~ PLAYER FM

On yesterday’s blog I mentioned how I keep notebooks everywhere because ideas or fixes come at all hours of the day- anywhere and everywhere. I wanted to do a blog on the ideas part of that.

Anything can spark an idea for a story: when I’m out walking, when I’m having a conversation, when I watch a nature documentary or am out and about in nature, music…etc. Music is a huge part of my writing process- each book has its own soundtrack. But sometimes my characters come with their own soundtrack. For instance, I was minding my own business washing my dishes a few years ago and in the middle of washing a plate, a red-headed character holding twin daggers came barreling into my mind with Metallica’s For Whom the Bell Tolls blaring around her. I had to stop what I was doing and write down the idea before I lost it.

I ended up writing a full chapter before I could get back to the dishes.

The Tuck Houston series is no different. Tuck came to me with Bring Me to Life blaring in the background and, not shocking to me, The Damned wrote to Evanesence and only them. The other two books were a mix of Evanesence, Godsmack and Nickelback.

My other books have their own soundtracks but that music didn’t come with the character, it came with the world around that character.

I was at work one day, when I was working in manufactoring, and in the middle of measuring a bearing, the first line of Over the River came to me.

And the above will forever be the favorite first line I’ve ever written.

My short story, The Red Barn, came to me when I was driving the backroads of Vermont one beautiful winter day. A red barn was surrounded by fresh fallen snow and suddenly I had the opening paragraph of a horror short story.

It doesn’t take much to spark an idea: a simple walk in the woods, listening to nature, standing by the sea, spark dozens of story ideas. Random bits of conversations in the grocery store as I’m walking the aisles, having conversations with friends. A lot of my stories also stem from dreams, or nightmares, I’ve had. But sometimes there isn’t a spark. When that happens, it’s because my story has to be specific to something. My short story, Dark Scorpio (and, yes, I do want to continue that series), is an example of that. Originally, that story was going to be in a short story collection. The theme was the darker side of the zodiac. I sat down to write a few ideas, and then after the first paragraph I knew my main character and the world she was in. But I’m not sure Autumn would have come to me if it wasn’t for that anthology.

The same goes for my romance novel, Son of Thunder. I was talking with my editor about another book that wasn’t working. She felt the story was being forced to places it wasn’t meant to go, and that was 100% the truth. So we decided that I would try to write another story in its place, and that the story would be focused on Norse Myth or vikings. That’s how Son of Thunder came to be.

Story ideas come from many places, and I can’t explain why. I think that’s just a writer thing. But I can tell you this: I will never be able to get all of my ideas on paper before my time here on earth is done. They’re too numerous and I can’t type fast enough. But I will get as many down as I can!