People often ask me how much of my personality and life experiences show up in my books. I can only speak for myself, but I don’t think it’s possible to write a book without infusing some of your own personality and beliefs into the writing. Having written a “soft-horror” novella and three pretty scary mysteries, I discovered I had a dark side. My ex-husband would probably say he knew that all along – ha-ha – but I was a bit surprised. I’ll be honest; though, I scared myself to death writing some of the scenes, especially working in the wee morning hours as my family slept. My two sons knew I was writing a “scary” book; they thought it was funny to sneak up on me, tap me on the back, just so they could watch me jump out of my chair in fright.

As for writing comedy, I tend to find something funny in almost everything. I have taken real life situations, turned them around, changed and rearranged them, so they actually became fiction, but funny nonetheless. Most of what I write comes from out of the blue. What’s fun for me, and maybe a little weird, is actually seeing the funny scenes unfold in my head, as well as hearing the wisecracks my characters make. I decided not to tell my therapist for fear he’ll commit me! I hope this is the way it works for other writers; if not, I’m screwed.

But I’ve gotten so tickled over some of the scenes I’ve written that I actually had to push away from my computer because I couldn’t stop laughing. That sort of makes up for the dry spells that I (and many authors) go through. This is when I tell myself everything is crap, and I’ll never write again.

I was working on another proposal when the idea for “What Looks Like Crazy” hit me. Again, out of the blue! The urge to write this story was so strong that I dropped everything and went with it. I asked myself, what could be funnier than a female psychologist who deals with a lot of crazies, including her friends and family? I knew that in order to make it really funny, it would have to be irreverent and somewhat politically incorrect. (I’m just hoping I don’t get hate mail!)

Once I got into the story, I suspected I had the makings of a series because of my characters. An editor once told me what makes or breaks a series are the characters, and all I can say is that I got lucky because I couldn’t have found a better cast. I suppose this is the miracle of creativity, but the characters took root in my head, and there wasn’t much I could do about it but sit back and let them do their thing.

I knew my main character, the psychologist, would have more stories; thus, was born the “Crazy” series. I’m now working on the second book, tentatively titled, “Nut Case.” If it’s half as easy as the first book, I’ll be one happy author!