Who Are These People???

I hear a couple of questions repeatedly:

• Where do you come up with your ideas?
• Are you writing about yourself?

These questions are closely linked so I'll answer them together. Ideas come from all kinds of places. For instance, when my siblings and I got together to remember my mom with dinner on the anniversary of her death, my sister brought the urn with her ashes and plopped it on the table before stating, "I brought Mom." Yeah. That's going in a book. Little things like that happen and get my mind working. With Accidents Happen, I think I passed an accident and thought about a couple meeting through the accident (pretty straightforward). Sometimes, I'll just get an idea while washing my hair. So I can't completely explain that.

As for the second question, my sister has very forcefully accused me of that one. It's not accurate though not completely wrong. With each character, I try to find something in my life to relate to my character so it's easier to believably write the character. For instance, Julian is an author with a day job in Accidents Happen. I am a writer with a day job. The resemblance then starts to veer left. Julian is strong and brave, and I'm pretty weak and cowardly. 

In my next book (I promise, the rewrite is in progress), the main character is Lillie, and she loves to sing. She sings in church and had aspirations to become a professional singer when she was younger. I love to sing, sing in church, and used to have aspirations to become a professional singer. The similarities die there. She is witty, kind, tough. I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes, mean, and weak.

Seeing a pattern? I pick one or two aspects I can relate to in my characters and then make them flawed yet better. And sometimes those similarities help fuel the ideas for story lines. I hope that makes some sense.

Anyway, as I said before, the next book is in progress. I do have a full-time day job and am in school online full-time as well so I'm trying. I love Lillie and Isaac, so I haven't forgotten them. I hope you will love them as much as I do!