My starting point is answering these three questions:ġ. I’m sharing mine today in the hopes it may spur you to try something different that might make it all a little easier or clearer.

How do you begin the whole unwieldy process of stringing together thousands of words into an interesting, coherent story? Okay, great ideas are had by all writers. Like a typical writer, I started asking those ‘what if” questions: what if he were a killer? what if he was dumping a dead body? what if I were a mermaid and he caught me?Īnd from that one dream, I created a world in which a clan of mermaids secretly lived deep in an Alabama bayou. The man noticed me and his expression was so evil that it frightened me and I woke up. I was swimming in a deep body of water when I noticed a man dumping something from the side of a boat. I’d completed three other novels (as yet still unpublished) before switching to mermaids and landing multiple contracts with Harlequin Nocturne for a series. Not only do I write paranormal romance, my subject matter isn’t of the popular vampire or werewolf variety. Plus – I’ve never outgrown my love of fairytales and mythology!

The speculation that there might be something more to reality than can be perceived through our senses provides a natural “what if” environment writers need to create stories. I love paranormal romance because the possibility of magic tingles my creative drive and curiosity.

Not one of us debbie herbert