What should I write next?
I’m a “shape shifter.” Not literally, although that would be really nifty. I have never settled into writing one type of romance. Contemporary. Historical. Paranormal. I’ve written them all. Of course, it’s not like I ever expected to write more than one book. Shoot, I sometimes still have trouble believing I actually finished one, let alone eight. (But remember, two don’t count. They’re going to be rewritten.) It never dawned on me I should find a tack and stick with it because of the way the stories evolved.
A Twist of Fate was written about a married couple because I was fed up with reading stories where the marriage was the end of the romance. Poo on that. I rebelled by writing a story about a time traveling married couple — James and Susan Williams.
When I finished the first book, I had a character who was “left behind” by the heroine. He was so sweet, so kind, and so wonderful, I couldn’t let him be all alone. Because the first story was a time travel, well, I had to write the second as an historical to accommodate that character. His name is Daniel Miller, and in the course of writing the second story, I worked out this cool family tree and somehow decided Daniel was going to be the patriarch of a very active family. Now, with the exception of the Amazon series, there’s usually a Miller involved in the story. All of my stories can stand alone, but there are common characters that tie all the stories together.
The third story I wrote was Murphy’s Law. It came from someone telling me that if I was going to write a book, I should write A Dummy’s Guide to Harness Racing. Well, why not introduce people to the sport through a good story instead? So I figured the main character had to start from scratch, and I started asking questions. Why would someone come to racing later in life? What would make him stick it out through the hard learning process? And Seth Remington and his forced time working for Katie Murphy were born. My readers learn about racing from Katie as she teaches Seth. (James and Susan Williams from the first book make a brief appearance.) But there was a problem I hadn’t anticipated. Another really cool character, Ross Kennedy, was left high and dry with no love interest. I couldn’t let that happen! So Ross got his own story and the girl — Laurie Miller. Hence, Free Falling was my next story.
Faith of the Heart came from sitting in a Christmas Eve mass, staring at a crucifix, and just… thinking. Thinking always gets me in loads of trouble. 
An idea popped in my head. What if your faith alone could save you — even from illness? So Sarah Reid was born, struck by lightning, and given the ability to heal people. Laurie Miller suddenly got a cousin named Joshua who was a reporter and wanted to expose the “phony” healer.
Somewhere in the middle of all these stories, I did something unusual. Most of my stories have to evolve through several chapters before I find the title and finally “feel” the whole plot. It has always been story, then title. Until I thought of this great title — Turning Thirty-Twelve. Then I wrote a romance around it, beginning with a short diatribe about being forty-something, which I happen to be. It also is the only first-person perspective I’ve ever used. As I said, I’m a shapeshifter.
My mentor said I should write more about horse racing, so I went back to the track. But I was also thinking about the Iraq war and my former students serving there. Lucas Mitchell was born, and I tried to show my readers all about these soldiers through Lucas’s eyes. His love interest is dear to my heart because she’s Hungarian, and through Jozsa Kovachs, I got to explore my own Hungarian roots as I wrote All the Right Reasons.
Why did I take a paranormal tangent? I blame my son. If I need a new book idea, all I have to do is take him to a movie. But we have to go early. Before the previews, we toss around ideas. (I’m sure people around us think we are talking about the oddest people.) By the time the movie begins, we’ve got main characters and a rough plot. When we went to see the last Harry Potter movie, I asked him what kind of paranormal we could write where the women were the heroes. Voila. We created the Amazons.
Currently, I’m finishing up the second in the Amazon series — and books three and four are buzzing in my brain. I had a good idea for a romantic suspense. And Jozsa’s brother was another yummy guy left all alone. There’s always the rewrites of the first two stories.
So many ideas, and so little time. 