A Little Taste of Poison, and a Legacy of Love and Laughter

by A.G. Howard

During the week of March 11th, book lovers all over the blogasphere are banding together to get the word out about a delightful YA debut and the talented young author who left a legacy of laughter for her readers, yet isn't here to harvest the fruits of her labor of love.

In tribute to her first and last novel, authors were invited to talk about their momentus firsts, so I'll direct you to this link where I originally announced my first book contract.

 

The rest of this post is all about Bridget Zinn, the vivacious and lovely young author, daughter, woman, and wife, who poured humor, heart, and soul into an endearing and magical story called Poison, all while battling the very real and merciless monster of colon cancer.

About Bridget:

Bridget grew up in Wisconsin. She went to the county fair where she met the love of her life, Barrett Dowell. They got married right before she went in for exploratory surgery which revealed she had colon cancer. They christened that summer the "summer of love" and the two celebrated with several more weddings. Bridget continued to read and write until the day she died.
 

Her last tweet was: "Sunshine and a brand new book. Perfect."

Bridget wanted to make people laugh and hoped readers would enjoy spending time with the characters she created. As a librarian/writer she loved books with strong young women with aspirations. She also felt teens needed more humorous reads. She really wanted to write a book with pockets of warmth and happiness and hoped that her readers' copies would show the watermarks of many bath time reads.

About Poison:

Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she's the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom's future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.

But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart…misses.

Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king's army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she's not alone. She's armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can't stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?

Kyra is not your typical murderer, and she's certainly no damsel-in-distress—she's the lovable and quick-witted hero of this romantic novel that has all the right ingredients to make teen girls swoon.
 

Purchase your copy:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• IndieBound
• iTunes Bookstore
• Powell's Books

Links about Bridget:

• Bridget's Web site
• A remembrance of Bridget written by her agent (with a video of Bridget that shows how vibrant and funny she was)
• Bridget's path to publication - in her own words.
• A post in which Bridget shares her Sneaky Tips for writing
 

Help get the word out:

• Everything you need to know about helping spread the word (lots of links and info about Bridget and her book)
• Please tweet this post, Poison's GoodReads page, or any of the above purchase or informational links using the hashtag #Poison, to help us make Bridget's launch a success so she can leave behind a legacy for her family, friends, and fans.

Thank you, and please take something away from this for yourself. Treasure every moment like Bridget did! Live life to the fullest every day. Considering all I've read about her, I believe she'd want that above anything else.

It's the Story, Stupid

The New York Times excels in hand-wringing about non-issues.  That's not a slam; it's just how I see things.  Doesn't stop me from reading, but sometimes you just gotta shake your head.  One recent eye-roller focused on the "power" of YA lit, an exercise in silliness  that tried to answer the question: how come so many adults seem to be reading YA lit?  (Although I did get a chuckle out of the guy who declared that adults should read adult books, you slackers.)


Frankly, I think all this navel-gazing goes back to the uneasiness many adults felt when they were captivated by Harry Potter.  Remember how they had different covers for adults so they could read in public and not be embarrassed?  (And, yes, they put all the books in plain brown paper bags, like bottles of booze.)  This whole thing about adults reading YA is one of those non-issue hand-wringers that have people moaning over cocktails: Why aren't we reading Ulysses?  (Really, they ought to be saying: But I just don't get it.  What the hell's Joyce talking about?  Say, remember when reading used to be fun and it was all about the story?)  


Still, adults reading YA is an interesting question.  Yet, in some ways, who cares?  I don't recall anyone getting all hot and bothered that adults might have liked, say, Watership Down (all those cute, furry, warlike little bunnies out to find females) or Lord of the Flies or . . . well, you get my drift.   If adults like YA, more power to ya, that's what I say.  If you pick up one of my books, I'd be ecstatic.


But I'm not convinced that SO MANY adults are turning to YA lit.  Rather, I think that certain YA books succeed is telling a story many or only certain  adults like (more on that in a sec), and that those few books are both marketed quite cannily and turned into media events (as, for example, the recent Hunger Games movie and campaign; really some interesting reading there on the power of marketing to generate buzz where none might have existed).


YA lit may also be appealing to some adults for other reasons, too.  Most YA books are frequently much easier reads than more highly self-conscious, literary fiction which calls so much attention to the crafting of each sentence (and don't just take my word for it; this has been pointed out before).  Although I know I'm going to get a lot of howling about that because there is just as much beautifully written literary YA, too.  Believe me, I know that; in fact, I'd like to think that, every now and again, I manage to pull that off myself.  But the reality is that YA lit is a tad easier; the action is much more direct; the pacing faster (closer to thriller pacing, frequently); POV is frequently limited to first-person which means that identification with the primary protagonist is much more rapid.  It's easier to slip into the story--and story-telling is the primary focus.  A lot of YA is out to tell a great story.


Really, it's not that YA lit is so much more powerful.  I mean, honestly, do you really think a ton of adults are all that interested in reading about kids fretting over the various indignities you suffer in high school?  (Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.)  Or what happens when your boyfriend goes off to summer camp and you have to stay home?  I'm not making fun; I'm really not; what I'm suggesting is that the "power" of YA lit is a specious argument just as what constitutes a YA novel is pretty tough to define.  I'll bet there are YA books you've read that made you take a step back and think, "Whoa, that's not YA."  The book may be marketed as YA, but it's not.  Just because a protagonist is supposed to be 16 or 17, for example, doesn't mean that the story feels authentic as a teenage/YA voice or narrative.  (I remember a few where I was . . . huh?  I don't think so . . . )  But because YA is so hot--a genre that seems to be highly marketable and attractive to tons of cross-over authors--I can see the temptation in marketing a book as YA when it isn't, and you know it when you read it.  You just do.


So what I do think we're talking about here are a) a few stories that captivate adult audiences because the story's got enough complexity to reach beyond teenage concerns and b) readers--and predominantly young women--for whom a very, very large number of YA books focus on things that still concern them even when they've left high school and moved off into college and beyond: namely, relationships.  Love.  Romance.


Don't believe me?  Think about it a second.  Go to any bookstore.  Go to this FANTASTIC blog post on various YA covers and take a long look; then go over to the adult romance section and compare. Go on; I dare you.  Think about the YA stories out there.  Yes, yes, there are all types and subgenres; I'm not arguing that.  But I think we can all agree that a high number focus on romance and love relationships.  This isn't anything to be ashamed about; love and sex and relationships are things adolescents think about, a lot.  But many of the more successful YA books incorporate romance as central to the plot, and I think that only goes to show that the demographic toward whom the vast majority of YA lit is pitched is still concerned with that well into adulthood.  Women read more than men; women also read more romance; romance still makes up the largest market share of the reading public and romance e-books are big sellers, no matter which way you slice that pie.   So the idea that the same girls grow into the women who will still pick up a YA novel that's heavy on the romance--and we all know which books we're talking about here--isn't so much an indication of YA's power as much as it speaks to YA's ability to continue to tap into the same concerns these girls carry into adulthood.


Please don't misunderstand me.  I love writing YA; it's hard work for me and I think I deal with some pretty heavy things.  I anguish over every single sentence, and I'm not kidding.  I'm not demeaning YA or suggesting that it's somehow a "lesser" literature.  Far from it; what I take issue with is the idea that YA is more "powerful."  I don't even know what that means, frankly, unless "power" is a synonym for "some YA books are bestsellers for adults and kids."


Really, what it comes down to?  It's the story.  YA or not, if the story sucks, people won't read it.  If the story is great and just happens to be YA, people will.


End of story.

When three wheels are better than two.

by A.G. Howard

Today's post isn't really about the cute and peculiar little German car above with its odd number of wheels. Although three can make for a much more interesting ride. Take love triangles, for example.

When I received my content edits from my publisher for Splintered, one of the things they wanted to expand upon was the two leading guys in relation to the heroine. There was potential there for a love triangle that I hadn't fully explored.

Later, a family member pointed out to me that she wasn't surprised they'd asked for those changes, because everyone was trying to emulate Twilight. She was convinced Stephanie Meyers started the whole "love triangle" craze in literature.

I kind of had to giggle, because there's literature dating back as early as the 1500's that utilized this same technique before any of today's famous authors were ever even born. One of the most unique triangles of its time was in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, where a woman dressed as a man, falls in love with a man, who's in love with another woman who falls in love with the first woman (thinking she's a man).

Confusing? Yes. But who could turn away from such a hot mess of unrequited love and wire-taut tension?

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847) is a more traditional triangle, yet there's a paranormal slant. Catherine, Heathcliff, and Edgar were caught in a crossroads of passion that in the end transcended death itself.  There was also The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (1909) with both the dark Phantom and the equitable Vicomte of Chagny vying for the lovely and innocent Christine Daaé's affections.

I'm not going to explore why love triangles work. It's obvious they do since they've been a literary staple in gothic romances and the like for centuries or longer (there are even examples in the Bible).

But as for me personally, the best love triangles are either when the heroine is attracted to both men for different reasons ... when somehow they are the two halfs to her perfect soulmate's whole, in which case she'll always be questioning who she chooses for they only have half of what she's looking for; OR, when one of the heroes realizes who the heroine is truly better off with and sacrifices his own happiness for hers.  

Mmm. Nothing hits the spot like a broken heart. ;)

Here's a short list of some my favorite literary love triangles to date (including the two I've listed above) in no particular order, from classics to present bestsellers:

• Katniss Everdeen, Gale Hawthorne, and Peeta Mellark - Hunger Games
• James Potter, Lily Potter and Severus Snape - Harry Potter
• Stefan, Elena, and Damon - The Vampire Diaries
• Catherine, Heathcliff, and Edgar - Wuthering Heights
• Jace, Clary, and Simon - Mortal Instrument series
• The Phantom, Christine Daaé, and the Vicomte of Chagny - The Phantom of the Opera
• Sidney Carton, Lucie Manette, and Charles Darnay - Tale of Two Cities
• Sophie, Nathan, and Stingo - Sophie's Choice

Are some of your favorite third wheel love stories up there? Do you have some favorites in films? I'd love to hear of any that I've missed!

A Tease is Only Fun if...

by A.G. Howard

Don't you just hate when someone teases you, tempts you, and taunts you with the promise of something amazing and, then, when you're salivating at the chops, they walk away laughing without giving you anything at all? Feels kinda like this...

Well, here at ADR3NALIN3, we understand the subtle art of teasing. We're authors, after all. And we know that a tease is only fun if the teasee (yes, it's a word! I just made it one, see?) eventually gets what they're promised.

Back in January, our Weekend Warriors, Frans and his zombie twin, Hans, teased our readers on this post, promising details of how to win this EPIC ADR3NALIN3 gift pack:

Bet you thought we forgot, right? Well we didn't. And today I'm going to give you all the deets you need to make this lovely dream package a gratifying reality.

What does this pack entail, you ask?

- Jordan Dane: ON A DARK WING autographed paperback and a snack pack inspired by her main character.

- Ilsa J. Bick: DROWNING INSTINCT and ASHES autographed hardbacks

- Wendy Corsi Staub: LILY DALE: AWAKENING autographed hardback

- Jennifer Archer: THROUGH HER EYES authographed hardback

- Chris Grabenstein: CURIOSITY CAT autographed paperback and assorted bookmarks

- Dan Haring: OLDSOUL autographed ARC

- Carol M. Tanzman: DANCERGIRL autographed paperback

- Brett Battles: HERE COMES MR. TROUBLE autographed paperback

- A.G. Howard: A creepy Alice in Wonderland themed journal, ribbon bookmark, and a signed bookplate, in homage to SPLINTERED, her upcoming YA Alice in Wonderland spinoff

- AND assorted and sundry swag too numerous to mention

How to win it? Easy cheesy (you'll have to read the Frans and Hans post to truly appreciate that little adage). Just hop over to Young Adult Books Central where they're having a Mega-Giveaway of EPIC Proportions.

Our package isn't the only thing up for grabs, either. Over twenty-some established and debut YA authors donated: t-shirts, lanyards, temporary tattoos, SIGNED books, SIGNED bookmarks and bookplates, magnets, felt coffee sleeves, shuriken hair clips, a USB flash drive, bracelets, pens, notepads, keychains, and more. There are five different prize packages to win, including ours.

So what are you waiting for? Hop over and enter the giveaway! (Entrants must have a US mailing address.)

The giveaway is open for entries from now until midnight, March 1st. Winners will be announced on Friday, March 2nd.

See? Here at ADR3NALIN3, we know how to make teasing fun. (◕‿-)

Good luck, everyone!



The Power of Books

by Jennifer Archer

Books are powerful. The books children read can shape their lives. I'm proof of that.

I’ve been thinking about the stories I read and loved when I was a child and a teenager – the ones that inspired my love of reading and made me want to be a writer. As an adult, I’m a pretty eclectic reader – I enjoy many different types of fiction. Looking back, I notice that was true for me as a child, as well. So here’s a short list of some of my childhood favorites:

The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink. This was my favorite book during elementary school. I must’ve been in 4th grade when I read it the first time, and I’ve thought of it often over the years. I recently decided to search for a copy; I wasn’t sure why this particular story had meant so much to me that I’d never forgotten the title, and I wanted to read it again to find out. Honestly, I’d forgotten most of the plotline and the characters, but the joy of reading it was fresh in my mind, as was the breezy beach setting. (We always lived in landlocked parts of the country growing up, and I’m pretty sure this story played a big part in inspiring my lifelong fascination with the ocean and beaches.) The Pink Motel is out of print, but I was thrilled to find a used copy of the original PINK hardback version! Rereading the story as an adult, it’s clear to me what makes it so special. On the surface, The Pink Motel is a fun, quirky, adventurous mystery full of eccentric characters – the guests staying at the motel that Kirby and Bitsy Melon’s family inherits. But on a deeper level, it is a story about embracing differences in people and having an open mind. I think it “spoke” to me when I was a shy girl who moved a lot, because it seemed to say that unusual people who don’t fit in with everyone else are wonderful and interesting, and that there are places in our society where they can be accepted as they are. In this terrific book, one of those “places” is a pink motel where anything can happen.

Escape From Warsaw by Ian Serrallier. I read this novel in 6^th grade. I think it has stayed with me for so many years and inspired me as a reader and a writer because it made the horrors of war real to me by presenting them through the experiences of three children, ages twelve, eleven, and three. During World War II, their country of Poland has been invaded by the Nazis, their father thrown into a prison camp, and their mother arrested and transported to Germany. The children are left to fend for themselves, and when they hear that their father has escaped to Switzerland, they face many dangers to cross war-torn Europe on their own and try to find him. Escape from Warsaw gripped me, made my heart race, and made me look at the world in a different way.

As an older teen, I discovered The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and realized for the first time the beauty and power of symbolism and imagery in fiction.  At the same time, I also discovered the classic ghost mystery and love story Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I loved the moody, dark tone of that novel, and I’m sure it’s the source of my own attempts to capture that “feel” in some of my own work. I also discovered romance novels during my late teens. I devoured the sweeping romantic historical sagas that launched that genre – Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower . . . The Wolf and the Dove – they are wonderful, breathtaking adventures – pure entertainment.  

Another book I fell in love with as a teen is Go Ask Alice by Anonymous. At the time of its release, this was marketed as the true diary of a teenaged girl who became addicted to drugs and eventually died of an overdose. Since then, it has been rumored that the "true diary" story was really a marketing ploy by the publishers and that the story is fiction. Either way, the book had a real impact on me. I read it when I was sixteen after moving to a new city and I related to "Alice." In the story, she moves to a new town, too, and becomes friends with the "wrong" crowd, which leads to her experimentation with drugs. The fact that I believed I was reading the words of a girl who had actually lived made me think more deeply about the choices we make and how they affect us. For that reason alone, I reluctantly forgive the publishers for deceiving their teen readers, if it's true that is what they did. 

As I glance over this brief list, it’s interesting that some of the titles that stand out in my mind, especially the ones I read as a very young child, are not well-known. Yet they affected me so much that I still remember their stories decades later. It’s also interesting to note that all of these favorites hooked me as a reader for different reasons and influenced my writing, and my life, in varied ways: The Pink Motel made me realize that books can provide comfort and friendship during times of loneliness, and can teach lessons in subtle ways; Escape from Warsaw offered an example of how powerful and life-changing a well-told story can be; The Great Gatsby brought me an understanding of symbolism and imagery, and exemplified that if handled deftly, those elements add depth of meaning to a story; Rebecca proved that tone and atmosphere can set a desired mood and stir a reader’s emotions; The Flame and the Flower illustrated that fiction doesn’t always have to make a social statement or inspire a reader to consider life in a different way – sometimes it’s enough to simply provide a fun and entertaining escape from reality. And, finally, Go Ask Alice taught me that a writer's words can influence the choices readers make in their own lives.

What books from your childhood or teen years taught you something about life or, in some other way, made such an impression on you that you've never forgotten them?

Visit Jennifer's website! 

Houdini, suburban vampires, and ghostly guests...

By A.G. Howard

One of my favorite things about being a writer is meeting other writers. I love to see the way their minds work: what gives them the idea for a story, how they go about researching and plotting, what their writing process is. I always come away feeling like I've learned something about myself and my process just by sharing theirs.

It's also true that I'm a huge fan of historical fiction, romance, and ghost stories which is why I wrote a gothic/literary YA set in Victorian England with a unique love triangle between a deaf heroine, a gypsy viscount, and a ghost ... sort of Jane Eyre meets A Certain Slant of Light. I'm hoping to pique my editor's interest in this story, tenatively titled GhostFlower, when I pitch second book ideas to her this week.

All that to say, when I met the lovely and talented Cat Winters (the brilliant mind behind The Suburban Vampire blog), whose historical ghost YA will be published through Amulet in Spring 2013, I knew I couldn't wait to pick her brain for details.  She graciously accepted my invitation to drop by today and give us the inside scoop. 

Please welcome Cat, and her debut novel In the Shadow of Blackbirds to the ADR3NALIN3 stage.

Cat Winters was born and raised just a short drive down the freeway from Disneyland, which probably explains her obsession with haunted mansions, bygone eras, and fantasylands. Her debut novel, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, a YA historical ghost tale illustrated with early-twentieth-century photographs, is coming Spring 2013 from Amulet Books. She lives outside of Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two kids.

I suppose I've been preparing to write my upcoming novel, In the Shadow of Blackbirds, since I first fell in love with ghost stories. My fascination with spirits started way back in elementary school, when a book about haunted locales called to me from a shelf in my school's library. Up until that point, I had only thought of ghosts as fictional creatures that showed up in spooky stories and movies, and because I was growing up in Orange County, California, not far from Disneyland, I thought they looked something like this: 

Yet here was a book telling me that real people believed in real ghosts.

After I read that library text, I found myself continually drawn to spine-chilling tales. One of my favorite movies growing up was The Watcher in the Woods—another one of Disney's contributions to my obsession with all things eerie. The movie is packed with menacing music and so many psychological thrills that both my sister and my daughter refuse to even talk about the film.

Here's the trailer so you can see what appealed to little horror-loving me:

I spent my teen years gobbling up classic Gothic literature (Shelley, Poe, the Brontës, etc.) and watching The Twilight Zone reruns and old Alfred Hitchcock films. Then, in my adulthood, I stumbled upon the history of séances in a Smithsonian Magazine article and started playing around with a historical novel involving séances. That particular book didn't go far, but several years later I landed an agent and chatted with her about an entirely new take on my basic plot ideas. I proposed showing a teen's perspective of the Spiritualism craze that resulted from the horrors of WWI.

One year later, I turned in the first draft of In the Shadow of Blackbirds. A year after that, I received an offer from Amulet Books.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds explores the nightmare world of 1918, when both WWI and the Spanish Influenza killed millions of people around the globe, and desperate Americans turned to séances, spirit photographers, and folk remedies for comfort.

To research the ghostly side of the story, I pored over spirit photographs from the era and read books that tackled the dark and dangerous aspects of spirit communication, like Harry Houdini's A Magician among the Spirits and Mary Roach's Spook.

Click the picture to find on Amazon

I've always felt some of the most moving tales about war and other atrocities are the ones told from the point of view of young people, so I picked a brutally honest sixteen-year-old girl to be my protagonist. She's forced to deal with death, spiritual tricksters, national paranoia, some highly creepy birds … and a ghost (of course).

Would the kid in me who loved to be scared out of her wits enjoy this novel? Definitely.

What about you? Are you typically drawn to ghostly tales? And do you believe in ghosts?

***



Want to keep tabs on Cat and her upcoming novel? Check out her online haunts:

http://www.catwinters.com
http://twitter.com/catwinters
http://www.facebook.com/catwintersbooks

http://www.goodreads.com/catwinters
http://suburbanvampire.blogspot.com/

The Idea Jar

by Jennifer Archer

The men in my husband's family joke that their wives all have "job jars" for them. In these jars, we supposedly keep scraps of paper with household chores written on them. When the men have time to spare, they're required to pull out a scrap and complete the task. (Now there's an idea, huh?)

One of the questions I'm asked most when people learn I'm a writer is "where do you get your ideas?" I'm always a little baffled that they don't see ideas everywhere, like I do. Life is like that job jar except, in addition to tasks, it's also filled with ideas. Usually I'll see something or read something or hear something that sprouts the question-- what if....? An idea blooms then grows, often in a story direction I never expected.

The idea for my first published novel for adults BODY AND SOUL sprouted while I was sitting in line at a bank drive-up window. My children were small then and they were in the back seat irritating one another. I'd had a long day and their argument was wearing my nerves thin. I looked at the car beside me in the next lane -- a red Volkswagon with a young, pretty 20-something girl inside. Her window was down, music blared from her radio, and she be-bopped to the beat. She looked carefree, relaxed, everything I wasn't at the moment. I thought, Right now, I wish I had your life. Then: What if two women like us switched places, right here, right now? Voila! The idea for BODY AND SOUL bloomed.

The idea for another one of my books for adults, SANDWICHED, grew out of a lunch date with two girlfriends. Over salads and tea, we talked about the fact that our parents were getting older and might soon need more of our time, while our teenagers were getting older and wanting less of our time. We were, in a sense, sandwiched between the needs of these important people in our lives.

I wrote THE ME I USED TO BE after reading a magazine article about a woman who got pregnant at the age of sixteen while at Woodstock. She gave her baby son up for adoption and he found her more than 30 years later. What if that child had been a daughter? I wondered. And what if the daughter died before they ever had the chance to reconnect? What if a grandchild found the birth mother instead?

MY PERFECTLY IMPERFECT LIFE began at a writing workshop. The teacher had us take out pens and paper. "A character finds something unexpected in his or her significant other's closet," she said. "Write about it. You have one minute." I put the pen to paper, started writing, and here's what emerged...It was black, lacy, a size 42 DD. She wore a B cup...barely. As the woman stared at the big black bra hidden in the corner of her husband's closet, she couldn't help wondering -- did it belong to another woman...or to him? The paragraph was rough, but when I read it aloud to the group, everyone laughed. I thought I might be on to something.

And then there are the book ideas that sneak up out of nowhere and surprise you. These can't be easily explained. My debut novel for teens, THROUGH HER EYES, is one such story. I'm not really sure where the idea came from. I went to sleep one night thinking that I'd like to write a novel for a teen audience, and the next morning I awoke with the bare bones idea. I see fragments of my own life in the story -- like the protagonist, Tansy Piper, I moved around a lot when I was growing up. (something like 24 times, actually!) And the creepy house Tansy lives in after she moves to Texas resembles one we pass by when my husband and I drive to our cabin in Colorado. Old photographs play a big part in the plot, and I've always loved old pictures and find myself wishing I could step into one and experience life back then. I incorporated that wish into the book, as well. But overall, I have no idea what inspired the rest of the story; it simply emerged as I wrote.


If you're a writer searching for a story, pay attention to the life you're living, the world around you, the common things you might take for granted. Let your imagination wander. Though it's true that sometimes I really don't know where a story came from, more often than not the idea arises from an every day occurrence, a minor incident that seems so mundane it's easy to let it slip by unnoticed.

 Writers, what has inspired your story ideas for the books you've written?