Letter to Readers from Bestseller Cari Quinn

ENTER TO WIN!

Hi readers! I’m so excited to be at Books on the House today! It’s always fun to discuss your books, especially when it comes to your inspiration for them.

Inspiration is one of those things that is pretty writer-specific. Meaning, what turns my crank as an author might not even get the attention of another. Or exactly how one puzzle piece I find works into the overall whole wouldn’t be anything but a tossaway idea for another writer.

For example, with No Dress Required, one of the things that inspired the hero Jake’s backstory of his fiancée leaving him for another man—though not the kind of man you might think—was listening to the Delilah radio show. Delilah takes calls from the lovelorn pretty often and twice now, those calls have triggered an idea for a story for me. It always inspires me when I hear real people talk about their lives. And then, of course, I add my own flourishes to make it work for my character.

Another recent inspiration for one of my stories was a billboard in my town advertising a woman looking for a man to “keep” her. The sign stole my attention and I turned it around in my head until I came up with an idea to use the concept of communicating via billboard. Eventually I settled on a story about a man who wrote billboard love notes to his dead wife and the woman who fell in love with his words. From there, my erotic contemporary book, Heart Signs, was born.

Do you enjoy hearing the “story behind the story” of how an author came up with their stories? It can be fun to imagine what might’ve prompted a writer to pen a particular tale…especially when the truth is stranger than fiction!

Visit Cari Quinn at www.cariquinn.com