I can use this! – that spark of excitement you get when you connect a new idea to one or more of the story subplots you’ve been mulling over. Everywhere we look there is inspiration of one sort or another. Sometimes it’s so much that we actively have to tell our minds to hold off on generating new ideas until we’ve had a chance to complete the dozens already waiting in line.  Today’s episode dives into some of our discussion over the years at the Blood-Red Pencil about ideas and inspiration. Links mentioned in this episode: Ideas for Writing   Shonell Bacon shares a list of inspiration sources for when you need to generate a new idea or two. Where Do You Get Ideas?   Terry Odell says that sometimes the ideas for books come when you’re looking for something else. Where Story Ideas Come From   Pat Stoltey says one of the questions most frequently asked of writers is: “Where do you get your ideas?” It’s not a popular question among published authors. Maybe th...

Since I write primarily historical fiction, I glean inspiration for stories, scenes, settings, plot points, characters, etc., mostly from history itself. "I can use this" is a constant mental refrain as I scour historical sources, looking for fodder for fiction. For example, my Silver Rush mystery series  is set in the 1880s, with the first five books in Colorado, primarily Leadville, and the three most recent in San Francisco, California. Why did I pick Leadville as the starting point? Well, that also springs from history, in this case, my family's history. When I was in my mid-forties, I learned that my paternal grandmother had been raised in Leadville. I knew nothing about the place, so at the urging of my uncle, I began to dig around into Leadville's beginnings as a silver-mining boomtown, with an eye to setting a novel there. I found many parallels between those heady days of the late 1870s/early 1880s, when folks rushed to this remote Rocky Mountain location, a...

What's unusual about the quote in the title of this article? Realistically, I've heard it often throughout the years, but never from a lawyer. The most recent time, however, came from an attorney who was doing some legal work for me, but let's go back to the beginning. My first exposure to a lawyer was my grandfather. Born in March 1884, he forfeited his high school education at the end of the eighth grade to help support his family. However, he was a brilliant, well-read young man with a huge interest in the law; despite his lack of formal education, he some years later passed the entrance examination to law school and graduated a full-fledged lawyer in 1911 when he was 27 years old. My grandfather was a humble, honorable, ethical man who could never have been sleazy in any area of his life. Grandpa married my grandmother in June 1913, and they were inseparable until her death in 1964. In their 50½ years of marriage, however, he never practiced law. Why? Grandma believed t...

In previous posts I’ve shared here about how reading newspaper articles has triggered a story idea. This happens a lot for my mystery and suspense novels, especially, One Small Victory and Boxes for Beds , and even some of the story lines for the Seasons Mystery Series. Many writers, if not most, get story ideas from just such experiences, especially those who write mysteries. If we run across an article about an unsolved crime, our writerly minds may latch on to that story and start trying to figure out a way to ferret out a solution. Topics for a story also come to us out of current events, as Dani Greer pointed out in her post last week I can Use This.. .about her Kindle Vella series. However, for other novels, we may draw directly from our experiences or those of people we know. For example, the story idea for my women's novel Play it Again, Sam came from a dreadful experience that a good friend lived through. She called me up one day to tell me that her husband of over twe...

Who, as a writer, hasn't stumbled on something interesting and thought these words? I can use this... That was certainly the case when I wrote my current Kindle Vella novel back in 2017, on the heels of the U.S. presidential election. The country was so divided, and I wondered if anything could ever bring us together again. Friendships were broken, marriages cracked, and communities were torn apart. I was quite distressed about it all. What about romance? What could possibly bring two people who were polar opposites politically and in other ways... together in that kind of toxic environment? And, thus, this book description for The Lonely Rancher   was born: Four conservative ranchers. Four feminist businesswomen. The most contentious, divisive presidential election in modern history. When a lonely rancher and a successful businesswoman literally run into each other... sparks fly...   From there, the story evolved into an exploration of what elements could overcome huge philos...