Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.
-- Jorge Luis Borges

If you want some good advice about how to keep track of your writing expenses, check out this new entry on PBW's blog. This is something I'm going to try.

One of my readers, Wanda, sent me some great questions:

I would like to ask you how you get the idea's for your characters and story lines?

That's always hard to explain, though I suppose the easiest way to say it is that the characters and story lines just sort of come to me -- sometimes inspired by the news, by articles in magazines, or even by observing folks at the grocery store. Dreams can become the root of a tale, or a painting or piece of music. Inspiration is everywhere -- you just have to open yourself up to it, and really look at the world instead of simply passing through. Everyone is different, though; inspiration is colored by experience.

How did the idea for this new series differ from Dirk & Steele? How do you come up with the names for your characters?

The Hunter Kiss series differs in the sense that it's told from the point of view of only one character, and as such, will be a continuing series. Actually, the best way to describe it is to probably show you an excerpt (a very short one) from Wild Thing, right here:

( Read more... )

As for naming my characters, sometimes it's really easy -- the names just pop into my head, and it's totally perfect. More often than not, though, I go to naming websites for inspiration. PBW has some great links that I use.

Finally, thank you so much for all your well-wishes about yesterday's news! I really appreciate it.