The answer is…very random places. My head is a crazy busy whirlwind that’s hard to describe, but have you ever seen videos of busy farmers’ markets where everyone is bustling around and vendors are calling out to each other? Like Pike’s Place Market where they throw the fish?
You know there’s a method to the madness but it feels chaotic? That’s my brain on a good day.
News clips. Random things my kids say. Song lyrics. Bits of weird conversations I overhear…
There’s always a spark that starts the opening line of a book. One time it was a song lyric about secrets in the dark and that got my brain wondering about what they were doing in the dark (Secrets in the Dark). Another time it was a random description of a dick the size of a beer can, and someone popped up in my head very confused about why that would be a good thing (Untouched).
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This is going to be the start of the book for Brady’s roommates (side characters in Save Me Santa)…
“It’s not offering to save their souls or kill their bugs.” The innocent cutie was so insistent, I had to stop at the bottom of the stairs and listen to what he was saying.
I was having a conversation with my son about a door-to-door salesman and an odd thought popped up in my head about the only two types of random questions you should be able to quiz people on. In seconds, I realized it was the downstairs neighbor listening to Brady ramble off thoughts he was very convinced made perfect sense.
FYI…they didn’t.
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But with nearly every book I’ve written, the first line is what pops up to begin with and then I have to start poking around to figure out who’s talking. Sometimes that’s harder than it sounds, like when I wrote the entire prequel to the Romance & Revolutions series without knowing who was talking. It was just page after page of a random conversation. I had to go back later with highlighters and figure out who was talking in each sentence. It. Was. Painful.
But I have learned my lesson and I don’t let myself get that far in the book anymore without knowing who’s talking and who they’re talking to.
So that’s how I’ve ended up with a thousand random starts to books on my computer…and I’m not sure that turned out to be a better plan, honestly.
But in all the chaos, I love being a writer and all the wonderfully squirrely people in my head, and I’m so glad you guys have given me the chance to share them with you.
SHARE IN THE COMMENTS: Are you a writer, an artist, creator of any kind? Where do your ideas come from?
I wish I was a writer. Started and trashed too many stories. I think it’s great that you have so many story starts on file. As someone who’s mind is always thinking and going on so many tangents it’s very much appreciated to see that they can be corralled into a direction in time. Never change hon. You are fabulous.