The number one question…

“Where do you get your book ideas?”

That’s the question people ask me most often, and I’m usually left groping for an answer, because getting ideas is never a problem. I have a million of them! So do all the other writers I know. It’s taking one of those fledgling ideas and transforming it into a 400 page manuscript that gets tricky! But I think I understand why the “ideas” question is so popular. As a reader, I’m curious about how writers come up with characters and plots too. But as a writer, I know there’s no easy way to describe that unpredictable process that leads from idea to outline to manuscript (and I’m too superstitious to delve into it very deeply).

I can give you an example though. Let’s Misbehave came about because I had an idea that collided with an interest at exactly the right time. That’s usually my “formula” (for lack of a better word): idea + interest = book I want to write. See, I’d just finished another manuscript, and I was kicking back with one of my guilty pleasures (a glossy fashion magazine) when I saw it: a one-paragraph piece about a shopaholic rehab center in Italy. Apparently, shopaholics went to the center for therapy, then were assigned jobs in the community as part of their treatment.

Now, I realize that oniomania (the clinical name for disordered shopping) is a serious condition. Of course. But come on—I’m a romantic comedy writer! I couldn’t wait to come up with the perfect shopaholic heroine, ambush her with a shopaholicism intervention, and set her up with the worst possible (for her) “real job” assignment…as a nanny/housekeeper to a trio of wild-and-crazy triplets and their football player bachelor dad. Voilà! Let’s Misbehave was off and running, at least in my imagination.

That just about covers the idea portion of the Let’s Misbehave equation. So where does the interest part come in? I’ll be back soon with the inside scoop!

Till next time…
Lisa

P.S. Early reviews for Let’s Misbehave are already coming in! Drop by my Web site to find out what readers are saying about the story.