Guest Author: Shiloh Walker

I'm delighted to host the lovely Shiloh Walker on the blog today. Please give her a warm welcome everyone, and don't forget to enter her contest!

Stuck

Hello…and thanks to Nalini for letting me drop in on her blog!

Where do you get your ideas?

Writers get that question a lot. I can’t speak for other writers but my ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere in between—a documentary, a random conversation with my husband, a book. And sometimes, I just wake up and there an idea is—like it was waiting for me.

That’s what happened with my current release, The Missing.

Actually, it was more like there was a character stuck in my head. Just there, waiting for me.

The first character to come into my head wasn’t the hero or the heroine, though.

It was Jillian—the hero’s daughter.

I had this little girl’s image in my head, the entire scene, really.

She was sitting in an airport, drawing a picture. When she was done, she shows it to her dad.

She’s drawn three kids, one in each corner of the page. He asks her who they are, and she says, “I don’t know…they are the missing…”

That was the start of the idea. The whole idea emerged from that, and this is one of those ideas that kind of bubbled and brewed in the back of my head for a while before I even attempted to write it. I think it was a year or two.

By then, the characters for the hero, Cullen and the heroine, Taige, had also started to form in my head, too, and once they were there, the story came pretty easily.

But it all started with the germ of an idea—that scene with Jillian, and I don’t know really know where Jillian came from. Of course, Jillian likes to hang out in my head, because not long after that idea popped into my head, another one came.

And this one involves a story where Jillian is grown up. That one won’t be written for at least a few more years, I know—in my mind, she’s still just a kid and I can’t write her story until I stop seeing her as a kid. She’s still in my head, though, and it’s just a matter of time, I think, until I write her story.

And since I’ve got a book out and I should probably do the standard author promo bit…here it is… (and stay tuned, I’m giving away a prize…)

The Missing is now out in mass market…

LOVE LOST

As a teenager, Taige Branch was able to do things with her psychic gift that others couldn’t understand—except for Cullen Morgan, the boy her stole her heart. He did his best to accept her abilities, until his mother was brutally murdered—and he couldn’t forgive Taige for not preventing her death.

PASSION FOUND

Now a widowed father, Cullen Morgan has never forgotten Taige. But what brings her back into his life is another tragic event. His beloved little girl has been kidnapped, and Taige is his only hope of finding her.

A LOVE THAT NEVER DIED

Working together against the clock, Cullen and Taige can’t help but wonder whether—if they find his daughter in time—it isn’t too late for the overpowering love that still burns between them…

And now here’s the prize. I get characters stuck in my head. A lot. Sometimes they are mine…like Jillian. Sometimes they are belong to other authors…like SL Viehl’s Cherijo & Duncan from the Stardoc books, or Nalini’s Elena & Raphael, Jeaniene Frost’s Cat & Bones, or JD Robb’s Roarke & Eve. They get stuck in my head, and not just a particular story, but the characters themselves.

This ever happen to you? What characters get stuck in your head and why? Leave your answer in the comments and everybody who enters will get entered for a $15 GC to Amazon. I will draw a winner from the comments and post the name here in the comments sometime during the next week. Contest open across the globe!

Shiloh Walker

http://www.shilohwalker.com