What's in Your Backyard?

Eleven years ago I went backpacking in Western Europe. I hit ten countries in six weeks, and it was an amazing, whirlwind experience. There was so much to do and see, so many different cultures crammed together, so much incredible history to be experienced. I've wanted to go back ever since, but I've also had my sights on Japan, Australia, and a dozen or so other foreign destinations vastly different from where I call home. Part of it is wanting to see and explore places I've only read about, but part of it is also to experience something new and be inspired by the unknown. But as I was thinking about it, I realized there's another place that has a pretty impressive collection of cultures and sights. That would be the good ol' U.S. of A. From New England to New Orleans to New Mexico and beyond, there's thousands of different little subcultures and quirks in the United States, many of which are largely unexplored

In my freshman year of college I met a girl named Denise. When I asked her where she was from, she named a town in Michigan. When I said I wasn't sure where the town was, she held up her hand, with her fingers together and thumb sticking out, and pointed to somewhere near the tip of her ring finger. She told me that the main part of the state of Michigan is shaped like a mitten, and she lived near the top. Don't believe me? Check it out. Since that day, whenever I meet someone from Michigan I ask them what part of the mitten they're from. They usually hold up their hand and point, and they seem to enjoy the fact that I know this little tidbit about their state.

I was chatting on Twitter a while back with author Dwight L. MacPherson, who also hails from Michigan. He told me about the Upper Peninsula, or U.P., which is the non-mitten part of Michigan. The residents of the U.P. are referred to as Yoopers by the folks "downstate." A stereotypical Yooper seems to be a cross between a hillbilly and Rick Moranis in Strange Brew. They even have their own dialect. Oh, and they eat pasties. Dwight and I got to talking about how people know so little about the country we live in. In all my 32 years I'd never once heard the term "Yooper." Yet it's been there the whole time.

I'm lucky to have been able to visit a lot of different states, and although there are definite similarities, each place has its own way of talking, own way of doing things. It's just fascinating to me, and it makes me think that we don't need to travel to exotic places to get inspiration. The old saying "write what you know" takes on a whole new meaning when you realize there's a large part of the country (and world) that doesn't know what you know. Every place I've traveled, from Anchorage to New York City to Georgia has given me a fresh perspective on things, and each one of these things has helped me in my writing. But my writing is also hugely influenced by the tiny town in Utah I grew up in. From riding bikes through miles of fields, to crawling around dry creekbeds finding pieces of flint, to hiking through the old refinery just outside of town, there are a million tidbits I can snag from my hometown and inject into my work.

So what's unique about where you live? Tell me something only a local would know. I can almost guarantee whatever you come up with will be of some use to you. Go out there and look around your backyard. Travel if you can, but also open your eyes to what's around your home. We live in an amazing country, and there's so much to see and experience. Keep your eyes open, and you might even meet a Yooper or two.

First Love

By Jordan Dane

I’d like you to meet Abbey Chandler from ON A DARK WING. By getting to know my character, perhaps you’ll get a glimpse of me. I’m her shadow. Authors often share bits and pieces of their life’s experiences with the character they create. One of the big personal inspirations I shared with Abbey in her book was my first love.


Hal was the name of my first major crush. Tall and lanky, he was shy and had a quirky smile and tousled dark wavy hair. Totally cute. He played drums in my brother’s garage band and drove a yellow VW bug. The boy banged on drums, but his sweet quiet nature drew me to him. Like my character Abbey did with one perfect guy, I watched Hal from a distance and was too shy to talk to him much. Yeah, he hung out at my house for band practices, but I was too young to do more than ogle him. He stole my heart in a big way and took a piece of it when he left. I have never forgotten him.


More on Hal later.


In my latest book with Harlequin Teen—ON A DARK WING—Abbey falls totally in love with Nate Holden. Who wouldn’t? He’s a great guy. Nate is hot with an amazing body, smart, and popular. He dates likeable real girls, not cardboard cutouts, and volunteers as a mountain rescue guy in Alaska, sacrificing his life to save others.


Here is Nate in Abbey’s words:


“At that moment, I had two really good reasons to forget how much my life sucked and Taco Thursday paled in comparison to the reason standing next to me. Nate Holden stood talking to his buddy, Josh Poole. His deep voice tingled in my ear and made my belly twist into a major knot, the kind of thing that felt terrible and amazing at the same time.


Even with his back to me, every side of Nate Holden was excellent. I loved how his dark hair curled at his collar and he always smelled good, but with a full frontal, his hypnotic blue eyes made me forget to breathe. Whenever he talked, his lips could mesmerize me for hours. Being next to him felt like getting sucker punched—and liking it. He’d always be out of my league, an unreachable boy from an alternative universe who came to me in my sleep and tortured me. Sweet torture.


Nate Holden had been a constant reminder of how messed up I was. He was the complete opposite of me, someone I had no business even wanting. We had absolutely nothing in common. Brownie points for him. But that didn’t stop me from practically stalking him. Deduct said brownie points. I played scenarios in my head, where he needed me as much as I wanted him. How sick was that? That would never happen. My fantasies were the only way I’d ever get close to someone like him.”


~Abbey Chandler – ON A DARK WING


But of course with every book there is conflict. ON A DARK WING (Harlequin Teen – Jan 2012) is a coming of age story for a girl who is lucky to be alive after she survives a car accident five years earlier where her mother was killed. She crossed paths with Death once and lived past her expiration date, yet she can’t move on with her life because she carries the burden of guilt over her part in the accident. That tragedy marks her. Tanner Lange looks out for her from a distance, the only way he thinks she’ll accept him—as her best friend. Being a boy in a wheelchair, he doesn’t feel he has much to offer her except his unflinching loyalty, the same loyalty she had always shown him after he was paralyzed. Tanner sees the major crush Abbey has on the perfect boy—a great guy who doesn’t even know she exists—Nate Holden. But Death has a reason for finding Abbey again. When she crosses paths with Death again, she’ll learn what love and loyalty truly are.


To share more about me and an inspiration behind this book, I finally need to talk about Hal, my first crush who had his own link with Death. Hal was killed by a drunk driver while he drove his little yellow VW. I can still see his cute face in my mind. I clipped out his death notice from the newspaper and for years I kept it in a special secret box of “his” things. I never told anyone how I felt about it. That was too personal. I never got to see Hal grow into a man. He’ll forever be that cute boy with a crooked grin, tooling around in his yellow bug. A first crush is special because it’s the first. It’s intense and none that come after will be quite the same, even if you find THE ONE.


But not every first crush story turned out sad like mine, so I’d like to hear from you. I want DEETS, people! You don’t have to share full names, but I’d love to hear about your first crush. Was it someone you knew or a famous celebrity? How did you stalk him or her? What things did they do that you still think about? Spill it!


"Dane's well-developed characters provide an authentic exploration of guilt, loyalty, and belonging."
~Publishers Weekly for IN THE ARMS OF STONE ANGELS (Harlequin Teen, Apr 2011)

My All Star Team Of Characters

Hi, Chris Grabenstein here.

Writers have a lot of strange rituals. Sharpening pencils -- over and over. Putting together iPod playlists to write to. Burning incense. Eating Cheetos. Eating M&Ms. Eating everything in the refrigerator.

Me? Well, when I get done writing my 2,000 words every day, I give myself a treat: I play one game of NCAA 2012 Football on my Playstation 3. For the guys out there, I play Dynasty Mode. You know what I'm talking about. Boo-yah.

My cat Parker likes watching the little men running around the screen so much, he usually comes into my office the minute he hears the guy say "E-A Sports. It's in the game!"

I'm not sure if Parker is into football or just flashing, moving things. The game screen probably looks like a jumble of giant laser pointers to him.

These days, my team is Stanford. I didn't go to school there (I'm not that smart). I just like the fact that, at Stanford, every time a player does something good, like score a touchdown, he gets a sticker on his helmet. Hey, who doesn't like getting gold stars for a job well done? We're all really first graders at heart.

Also, I named my coach Stan Ford. (Yes, it takes very little to amuse me after writing 2000 words).

One of the fun things I do when playing my daily game of football is name the players after characters I'm working with in books. For me, it's a way to give those characters a life outside the confines of their stories. But, I always try to keep my guys in character when they play football.

For instance, Riley Mack, the uncommonly clever star of my upcoming HarperCollins title RILEY MACK AND THE OTHER KNOWN TROUBLEMAKERS has to play quarterback.

The guy is a natural born leader. In the book, he heads up a "Mission Impossible" type team of 12 year old troublemakers who right wrongs and defend the weak. He's sort of a new Robin Hood. His buddy, Hubert Montgomery, who everybody calls "Mongo" is a seventh grade so huge he looks like he has seven other seventh graders stuffed inside him. Mongo plays middle linebacker. Or Defensive Tackle.

Their new fifth grader friend Jamal Wilson is a flashy running back. Jamal is a bit of a showboat in the book and on the field. But, like they say, it's not bragging if you can do it. Jamal has already won the Heisman Trophy three times, including when he was a Freshman, which, in the real world, has never, ever happened.

The hero of my Haunted Mystery series, Zack Jennings, is still a bit of a loner when he grows up and goes to Stanford. So he plays wide receiver. Last week, he set a new record for passes caught and touchdowns scored. His pal, the super intelligent brainiac Malik Sherman, is a cagey cornerback and leads the league in interceptions.

Sometimes, the characters from my adult mysteries show up on the roster. John Ceepak likes to play for Army. Danny Boyle for Notre Dame.

But, usually, it just me and the guys from my middle grades books.

Writers need diversions that don't involve food, I guess.

And the characters? Well, they need to hop off the page from time to time and just play.

And, it's amazing how much more vividly alive the characters become in your head after you've won the BCS National Championship together.

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?