People always ask me how I think up the crazy things that end up in my novels. And yes, most of it is from my imagination, but almost always that imagination is inspired from real life events. A few things, however, come straight out of reality. Like the armadillo scene in That Man of Mine.  I mean, do you think I could make that up? It happened to my friend Sybil, who called the cops, and one of them ended up being a guy she’d gone to high school with (the cop, not one of the armadillos).

In case you haven’t read the book yet (why haven’t you read the book yet???), Mimi, my heroine, is trying to go to sleep when a  couple of rather loud armadillos start to make whoopie along the side of her house. Panic and hilarity ensue, because, well, she doesn’t know they are armadillos making all that racket and before you know it, the entire Whispering Bay first responders crew end up at her house, including her estranged husband and our hero of the book Zeke. I really can’t do this scene justice in a simple description. Just read it.

Another real live scenario that ended up in one of my books was the day I was driving down the road and spotted this very expensive looking boat being hauled. I’m not a boat person, but the bumper sticker on the back of the boat sure caught my attention. MY OTHER TOY HAS TITS. Oh, boy. Yeah. I wasn’t going to forget that bumper sticker any time soon and I absolutely knew I had to write it into a book. So I put it on the back of the car of one of my favorite recurring villains, Ted Ferguson (Bunco Babes Tell All, Then He Kissed Me). Poor Ted. He’s just so icky I had to do it, and well, once my heroine, Lauren, saw that bumper sticker she refused to get into Ted’s car and my story took off.

So, the old adage is true. Be careful what you say to us authors. You just might end up in our novel!

Happy Monday, everyone!