Where do you get your ideas?

This is a question authors get asked a lot. One answer I often give is that authors of historicals have a handy-dandy idea source: our research. I can't tell you how many times I'll be researching one story and find a really fascinating bit of information that doesn't fit the current work, but provides inspiration for another story. Simply put, research gives me ideas.

But what really separates a writer of books from those who don't is what a writer does with those ideas. How does a writer take what might be a few sentences or paragraphs and create a story and characters? To demonstrate some of my process, to show rather than tell, I've started a new blog called Story Seedlings.

During the course of researching A LOVER'S KISS for Harlequin Historical, I discovered that the proceedings of the Old Bailey are now online. Not only that, they give a link to a different case every day - a great source of ideas, or as I like to think of them, seedlings.

Over at Story Seedlings, I take a case and show you how this writer would use it to develop characters and plot for a historical romance. I hope you'll stop by.

If you're interested in what I'm currently working on and what else might be going on in this writer's life, please stop by my other blog.