At breakfast yesterday, my husband asked about the new stories i’m plotting. I started describing a science fantasy menage and how there are two races on the planet, one a dominant invader group of tall, aggressive humanoids and the other a more gentle race. But there are also some hybrids and our rebel leader is one of those. The dominants are blue skinned and very modest but live on energy — And my husband shook his head. “Where do you come up with these ideas?”
That’s the question that many people ask. When i decided to write my first book, Genetic Attraction, i had to answer it for myself. Where to start? Well, romance is fantasy and i have plenty of those so i decided to start there. I’ve always had an older woman/younger man fantasy (since i became an older woman) so i grabbed that element. But i wanted to write male/male, so i thought, what if the hero has a male lover? I love my men pretty, so lets make him a super-beauty. And i want my heroine to be smart and capable so i fished around in all the many technologies and businesses i learn about in my day job and decided it would be cool if she was a genetic scientist. Then i needed conflict (the tough part for me) so lets put her to work in a University. From my past experience, i know that higher education is a hotbed of politics, so that should provide a real basis for crises. And so a story was born.
What i learned after that was that creating stories is like sex. The more you have the more you want. As i wrote Genetic Attraction, i couldn’t bear the idea of leaving my characters, so i wrote a prequel that tells how the two men met in Los Angeles and fell in love. I adore that story and i’m editing it now for submission. In that book, Jake’s brother appears and he’s such a great character i started creating a story for him. That book is being plotted now. Then i received an e-mail from one of my best friends who lives in London raving about a ballet she saw. I love ballet. What if i created a story with a male ballet dancer? And who could be the other man? Maybe a reporter trying to get a story and — i’m off on another book.
For years i couldn’t imagine what i would write about. Now i can’t figure out how i’ll live long enough to write all the stories in my head. Dig into a fantasy. Figure out what turns you on. Put your hands on the keyboard and write.
The photo above is one of the inspirations for my character, Jake Martin, in Genetic Attraction.