Author Lori Wilde drops by... (& a Giveaway - closed)

CONGRATS TO LUCKY WINNER- DORIS!

Guess what?! Lori Wilde, the author of The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club is guest blogging here today! You can read more about the book and my review at A Bookworm Reads. Too impatient to click thru? In that case, The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club (Avon, 400p, Isbn-9780061808890) is the kind of cozy romance you’ll want to curl up with during the holidays…and never put down.

Authors are often asked where they get their ideas. We hate that question. I contend we’re being asked the wrong question. I think the real question is: How do you turn those millions of ideas into a cohesive story? Because let’s face it, truly ideas are everywhere. All you have to do is turn on the television or get on Twitter or observe your friends and family. There’s no lack of ideas.

The bare spark for The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club started from a comment I heard an editor make at a conference. She said nothing does it for her like bad boys. Readers seem to agree. But how to make a bad boy fresh? That was my question. For some reason, that Carly Simon song, “Jesse” popped into my head. (Here’s where I admit I have a music playlist for every book and I don’t go out seeking the songs, they just come to me.)

I was working on another book at the time and tucked the bad boy to the back of my mind. Then my mother-in-law got breast cancer. Since I’m also a nurse and she had no one else to take her to her radiation treatments, I volunteered. Five days a week, for six weeks I drove the forty miles to her house. On that daily drive, I had a lot of time to think.

One day, the song “Jesse’s Girl” came on the radio and I could see this envious guy lusting after Jesse’s girl. I knew then that my hero was Jesse and he was a bad boy. And then ta-da, I had the twist. I was going to tell a love triangle between a bad boy who wasn’t so bad, a good boy who wasn’t so good and the woman who loved them both.

I already knew where I wanted to set this book—in a small tourist lake town in Texas where I once lived. I also knew I wanted this to be a reunion story. And I knew I wanted a group of tight-knit women who could play matchmakers and mentors to my heroine. Tight knit, hmm? How about if they were a knitting club? But a lot of authors had been doing knitting clubs. How could I make mine different? Well, what if like me, my heroine couldn’t knit. What if it was her dark secret and she’d be kicked out of the club if they found out?

From there, a story was born. And an author had to learn how to knit in order to write it.

Fast forward a year and a half. My mother-in-law is in remission. The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club is on the shelves and hey, I’m knitting Christmas gifts! See where those ideas can take you if you just ride with them for awhile? So if you’re ever tempted to ask an author where she gets her ideas, stop and instead ask her, “How did you turn your idea into a story?” You just might be surprised.

Reading an author’s guest post like this one is truly inspiring, I find. It’s like Sherlock Holmes once said to Watson – “…You see, but you do not observe.” That’s what it’s like being a reader and discovering how these experienced authors truly a stone into a diamond. And Lori, you’re to be commended for taking such good care of your MIL!

GIVEAWAY

The Prize

A copy of this book will go to one lucky reader.

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Recommend me another book with a sexy bad boy!

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Deadline   Midnight CST of January 14, 2010.

Eligibility  US only.

Please read the Disclaimer. Good luck!
Note – This book was received for review/feature consideration.
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