Noony, here! I’m tickled pink to introduce my buddy from the Nice Girls Writing Naughty group, Leela Lou Dahlin. She’s our special guest for this week’s Writer Wednesday. Please make her feel welcome!

Take it away, Leela!

Being a writer… it’s something that I’ve always done but it wasn’t until recently that I became serious about being a published author.

Someone recently I was on a site that asked how people came up with their stories and I thought it was fascinatingly funny reading about how all of these different people come up with stories. I’ve almost never heard of any one person doing it the exact same way and on that site it was no exception. One thing it showed me is there is no right or wrong way… you make it work out the way it’s best for you. Some people start with the characters, some with the troupe or storyline (unrequited love, brother’s best friend, friends to lovers, etc…), some start at the beginning and others at the end.

My story always starts with a scene. Sometimes it’s a love scene or maybe it’s an argument but it’s a passionate moment that tells me a lot about the people who are within it. I may think about this scene for a few minutes, a few days or a few weeks until more and more of the character’s personality traits are revealed (Unfortunately this usually takes place when I’m writing someone else’s story – sometimes the characters wait quietly and other times they demand to at least be written down).

After I get through the scene where I’m introduced to these people, then I have to figure out how and why they got to this point. Usually one of the characters will let something out in the conversation that will clue me in to their history. This sounds very complicated, I know, but it really isn’t. I plot out the how, when and why before figuring out what is going to break them up and what will bring them back together.

My first published book was released April 15, 2014 so I’m coming up on my Author-versary (side note – I’m the queen of making up words) for my book titled A Haught Date. It was released as an e-book almost a year ago and earlier this year they released it to the world in print form. Bwah-hahahahaha *attempting evil laugh*

So there you have it…that’s how I do it.

Feel free to come say hello on any or all my social media hang outs.