If I had a nickel for every time I’m asked that question … I would have a LOT of nickels, LOL.  I take it as a compliment, actually.  In my line of work, it’s nice to know people wonder how I come up with gruesome tales of mayhem and murder.  It must mean I have an innocent face.

Bwahahahaha.  Little do they know! 

But I do get that question a lot, as most writers do.  So where DO I get my ideas?  And the answer is - all different places, and each tale has a tale of its own.   For example, in DIE FOR ME, the villain is a video game designer with a meticulous attention to detail.   Bad things ensue.  I got the idea for that book after listening to the audio version of a time travel book where the characters go back to medieval France.  (Think Gerry Butler in the movie version.)  I thought, now wouldn’t going back in time be too cool!  For about five minutes maybe - then I’d miss my flushing toilet and MP3.  But what if a villain was obsessed with that time period - especially the violent parts?  Then I remembered visiting a medieval torture museum in Germany with Mr. R (totally his idea), and the evil Simon Vartanian was born. 

SCREAM FOR ME - which was released yesterday - took a slightly different path.  I started with a mystery I’d left dangling at the end of DIE FOR ME - the first time I’d ever written a sequel!  The evil Simon had possessed some photos, you see.  Photos that looked like real victims being hurt.  His older brother Daniel pledges to get the victims justice, no matter how long it takes.  Then add in a startling experience of my own:  my first viewed autopsy.  I experienced the very disturbing sensation of not being able to absorb what my eyes were seeing.  Part of my mind insisted I was looking at a doll.  The other part knew I was looking at a dead body and tersely told the first part to get it together.  I distinctly remember the entire dialogue between the two halves of my brain, like I was a bystander.  Very, very surreal.  That experience became a big part of SCREAM FOR ME as I thought about what would happen if someone saw something so horrific and overwhelming that the denying part of their mind won?  What would make them remember, and what would that experience be like? 

Now you know a bit about where I get my ideas.  I like to think I still have an innocent face!  (Bwahahaha!)

So … where do you get your inspiration?  If you paint or write or sing or play sports or whatever it is you do, what makes your mind percolate?  Do you have to have incentive (aka chocolate) or does inspiration miraculously occur?  Do I have an innocent face (humor me)? Have you seen the video for SCREAM FOR ME?  Will you RUN and get your copy of SCREAM FOR ME today?

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In the book I’m writing, the heroine has been married to a man considerably older than herself. Think Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall. But one of the differences between my heroine and Anna (one among many) is that she doesn’t lie to herself that the marriage was all about love.

So in researching character motivations for the book, I’ve read numerous articles written about women who married older men. None of them would come right out and say they married for money. But it wasn’t as if they were marrying men who live on social security and have to work part time as Walmart greeters. A noble and worthy profession, indeed. Just not very high paying. In the articles the women would say stuff like, “I was married once or twice or three times and finally found my soul mate in Harold.” I finally had to stop reading the articles because I was rolling my eyes so much, I was getting migraines.

Now, I’m just going to admit up front that I don’t believe in soul mates. I know I’m a romance writer and I’m probably going to get slapped around for not believing, but it’s all just too overly dramatic and gooey for me. It also implies that there is one true love for each person, and if the soul mate dies, that’s it. I much prefer to think of Mr. G as my puzzle piece. He’s kind of rough around the edges and can be frustrating, but he fits perfectly into my life. I can’t tell you the number of people I know who’ve divorced their soul mates while I’m still hanging out with my puzzle piece. In fact, tomorrow it will be 25 years of happily wedded stuck together-ness.

What do you think of women who marry much older men? How much older is too old? And do you believe in soul mates?

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I am thinking of purchasing a new car. There’s really nothing wrong with my current car, a Honda Civic, except that it’s 10 years old, but I don’t think it’s too extravagant to want to drive a different car every 10 years or so.

I’ve also decided to be a conscientious citizen, and so I’m planning on getting a hybrid. At the moment I’m torn between a Civic (45 mpg - the black car) and a Toyota Camry (40 mpg - the green car). I’ve checked out some of the SUV-type hybrids, but frankly an improvement to 22 mpg doesn’t sound all that economical.

If I went with my heart, however, I wouldn’t be getting a sensible, fuel-savings sedan. Have you seen the Chevrolet HHR? It’s kind of retro Packard-looking, and I would feel very hip driving it. And then there’s my favorite of the past few years, the Chrysler PT Cruiser. I seem to have a thing for retro cars.

Rick Addison, the hero of my contemporary series, LOVES the cars. He’s got classic Mustangs, a couple of different Mercedes, a Bentley or two, a Jaguar, and other cars we haven’t seen yet. Rick’s more of a car-person than I am. Honestly, if it gets me where I’m going, has A/C and a good sound system, then I’m happy.

What about you? What’s your dream car? And which is the one you end up getting? And what do you think – Camry or Civic?

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For Refreshment Only Sunday (FROS) is delighted to celebrate all of our hot mommas! As we all know, hot mommas deserve hot dads, so here are a few in honor of this wonderful day.

and . . .

and while I’m not the world’s biggest Brad Pitt fan, even I melted at this picture:

Happy FROS Mother’s Day to all of our Hot Mommas!

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There’s this idea going around that children who’ve been adopted are missing something. Missing a true identity? Missing vital details of medical histories? Missing a sense of heritage or family or belonging?

I don’t know exactly, so don’t ask me. I’m adopted and I feel fine.

I know that my birth mother made a courageous choice, a loving choice, and that I’ve never stopped being thankful to her.

I look at my medical history not as a blank slate, but a clean slate. As far as I know, nobody ever died of anything. I’m going to live forever.

I know that my parents loved me without reservation and without hesitation, overjoyed by the Gift of Me.

I know that all my relatives accepted me as one of them, the final proof being that I got Important Stuff when they kicked the bucket.

I am the granddaughter of Swedish immigrants, because they told me so and sang me Swedish nonsense songs.

I am the daughter of an ex-Marine who delighted in my ‘take-no-prisoners’ personality.

I am the daughter of a woman who married a paraplegic and who made our home a place of laughter and music.

I was loved with an overwhelming, never ending love. I was my mother’s best friend. My father lit up like a search light whenever I walked into the room.

My parents are dead and I miss them every day. And when anyone asks me why, now, when the possibility of hurting my parents is gone, as they’re gone, why I don’t try to find my real mother, I have only one thing to say:

I knew my real mother. She died ten years ago. The mother I had was the only one I’ll ever need, and the only mother I’ll ever want.

And you know what? That’s exactly what my birth mother wanted for me. She wanted me to be loved, to be a part of a family, forever. And I was. And I am.

Thanks, Mom.

What did your parents love about you? What is it that makes family feel like family?

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My little ward of state discovered a Winnie the Pooh bear in a closet that belonged to me when I was a kid and latched onto it. He will not part with it now. My maiden name is Winn, which turned into Winnie somewhere in grade school, and naturally, Winnie the Pooh bears followed. And as much as I do love Winnie the Pooh and his honey pot, he was not my favorite toy. When I think of my childhood, I almost always think of Elizabeth first.

Elizabeth was a tricycle. She was green and she had streamers on the handlebars, and I loved her so much I named her Elizabeth. I don’t know how old I was, but I know where we were living at the time and I know I couldn’t have been more than four or five. That green trike was my first brush with freedom and the depths of my imagination. I didn’t get very far, but it seemed like miles and miles to me. And as we lived way out with cows, the landscape was nothing but an empty easel where I began to paint my stories—almost always of danger and almost always involving Indians, and Elizabeth was my trusty steed.

I had Barbies, too, but that was before the Barbie dream house, so my mother made us a house with her shoe boxes. I had older sisters, so that meant they got the shoes and the little combs and I got Midge. We created plays with those Barbies, with three acts, and used the shoe boxes for stages.

I had siblings, too, who sometimes can be as good as toys. We would go to the wheat fields and stomp down a house—I mean literally stomp the wheat down and make rooms amid stalks that stood higher than our heads and be a different family. The next day, we’d be a wagon train, circling the wagons for the night in that wheat, and guess who was lurking in the wheat where we couldn’t see them? Yep, a few Indians. The next day, we probably were discovered and got in trouble.

Do you remember when you first started making up stories, and do you remember what toy or activity sparked your desire to do it?

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My daughter is always sending me fun youtube links to crazy stuff. She knows I love to laugh and be amazed, and she’s sent me some good stuff.

The other day, she sent me this link. Check out what these youthful, obviously well-insured guys did to stave off boredom: (It’s a youtube link, so give it a moment to load.)

I must say, it made me remember certain events I witnessed/participated in during my younger days. Before, of course, I knew about oh, death, paralysis, and such.

Did you and your friends ever goof off in silly ways when you were younger and less worried about losing an eye or mangling a limb? Did you push boundaries back then you’d never think of pushing now? And did you think the guy who back-flipped into his pants was going to plant his feet right into best friends’ faces?

As for what I did in college and high school to kill valuable time before I became aware of my own mortality . . . you tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.

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Okay, I admit it.  I love gadgets.  Mr. R just shakes his head at me sometimes when a new gadget comes on TV and I say, “Ooooh, I want it!” 

I have new gadgets and some oldies that are still goodies.  My newest acquisition is a GPS that came pre-loaded with maps of the UK.  I used it last month when I made my trek from London to Wales.  It would instruct me in the proper road to take, the lane to be in and on the one occasion I missed my turn, it politely said, “Please turn around at the first possible opportunity.”

I like a polite gadget.

My life is ruled by my palm pilot, which pops up with a warning on upcoming appointments.  It failed me today.  I forgot I was supposed to blog.  I could blame my trusty palm pilot, but the truth is, I forgot to input it, so the fault is totally mine.  I absolve my gadget of all responsibility.

So do you love your gadgets?  What’s your favorite?  Do you leave the house without your cell, EVER?  How did we survive before GPS?  (I just got lost a lot.)

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When I popped onto the Goddess blogs this morning, I saw that there wasn’t a new blog and I thought: “Hmm, wonder what slacker forgot she was blogging today.” Then I went to our special blog calender and saw it was me. I am that slacker. For some reason I thought it was Claudia’s day.

So since I don’t have anything intelligent and informative planned, I thought I’d ask you all a question that has been rolling around in my brain.

Why can’t Hollywood make a decent romantic comedy? They really haven’t for years. Why don’t they just take a good romance novel and adapted it? I just don’t get it. The book already has a built in audience.

And what romance novel would you like to see made into a movie?

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Was the story of how my parents met and fell in love and got married. Doesn’t every kid want to know those essential details? The details of how I got here? The unspoken wish that it will happen to me someday?

My mom and dad’s love story was so unique and so romantic that I was telling it routinely on the playground during recess. Even other seven year old girls knew it for the Love Story it was. So, here it is, one more time.

My dad was a Marine during WWII and became a paraplegic. It was while he was in the VA hospital in Manhattan that he met my mom. She was a student nurse. The patients and nurses weren’t allowed to fraternize, so they kept their budding romance a secret, which wasn’t easy. One time, my mom took my dad for a walk in his wheelchair through a field of grass. The MPs drove by, so my mom took a nosedive into the tall grass, hiding. If she’d been caught, she would have been kicked out of school. So there’s my dad, sitting in his wheelchair in the middle of this field he in no way could have gotten into by himself.

“What are you doing?” the MP asked, trying not to laugh.

“Just out to get some air,” my dad answered, lighting a cigarette.

“All by yourself?” the MP said.

“Sure. Yeah,” my dad said, taking a casual drag.

By this time the MPs are both laughing out loud, ignoring the sounds of my mother snaking through the grass on her belly. The MPs got my dad out of the field, kept their gaze averted from my mom, and didn’t say a word to anyone. Who says MPs are heartless?

To be honest, my mother’s mother was horrified that her daughter wanted to marry a paraplegic. To be honest, who can blame her? This was 1948. Being disabled was not as mainstreamed as it is now. There was no handicapped parking, no ramps, nothing to make it easier, no sensitivity training. People stared. And, if you’ve done the math, why was my dad in a VA hospital in 1948? The war had been over for three years. He’d been a paraplegic since 1942.

I’ll tell you why. His parents didn’t know what to do with him. He was damaged goods and they basically wrote him off. Their own son. Their first born.

So, here’s my mom, in love with a guy who can’t walk, whose own parents have left him to molder in a VA hospital, a guy whose life expectancy is about ten years and he’s used up six of them. What does she do? She marries him.

She marries him. And they stay married, and he stays alive, for another forty-three years.

My first love story was a great one, wasn’t it?

Is this why I write romance novels? I don’t know, but I know it didn’t hurt.

Shameless plug alert: The Courtesan’s Secret comes out tomorrow. I hope you buy it and have the fun of immersing yourself in another love story from another time and another place, because once upon a time is the best way for a love story to start.

What about your mom and dad? Grandparents? Aunts or uncles? How did they meet and fall in love? What’s their love story?

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