How Do I Love Thee? by Roseanne Dowell

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Oh wait, this blog is about writing, not love.

Although in a way it is about love. I love writing. I’m sure most authors will say the same thing. At least serious authors will.

We can’t stop writing any more than we can stop breathing. So every chance we get, we write. Sometimes it’s profitable. Other times it’s not. Many people think writers are rich, or at least get paid a lot.

Not!

While most writers don’t write for the money, deep down, we all want to write that blow out novel. The best seller. We’d be lying if we said otherwise. Yet, most of us know those authors are few and far between. That’s not why we write.

We write because these voices in our heads insist on it. Because our minds are constantly making up stories. We see things differently than other people. While most people stop at a traffic light and just wait for the light to change, writers look around to see who’s in the

car next to them. And they can’t help it, their imagination takes over and next thing you know they’re making up a story. Same thing happens in shopping malls, restaurants,

banks, or grocery stores. Our minds are never still.

Sometimes an article on the news sparks a story idea. Many things come into play when writing a story. I’ve had heroes/heroines pop off the pages of magazines. An overheard comment inspired a story idea. Once an idea pops into my mind, that’s all it takes. My mind goes into overtime and next thing I know I’m jotting down ideas.

The only thing I know about the story is the beginning and the end. How I get there is as much a surprise to me as it is to the reader. Many authors outline their stories. I tried that once and the story was stalled for two years. For me the story flows better if I let it go on its own. Everyone has their own way of doing things, their own voice, their own way to write and that’s fine. There are very few rules in writing.

The one thing that remains the same is writers love to write.  So I guess you could say this blog was about love after all. 

You can find all my books at You can find all my work at: Books We Love or Amazon.

WHO am I really? by Sheila Claydon

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My publisher has suggested that I and my fellow authors start the year off by introducing ourselves properly on the Books We Love blog. It's a much taller order than it seems. It depends is the only answer I can give about who I am and what I do.

Although I'm always a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an aunt, a cousin, a friend, a colleague, and a neighbour, I'm also a writer, a reader, a gardener, a cook, a dog owner, a traveller, a walker, a carer, a Yoga practitioner, and a whole lot of other things besides, and that's before I get on to control freak, micro-organizer and (you might already have guessed this) list-maker! Then there's my working life  - the jobs I had, the things I learned - but I'm not even going there.

I'm no different from anyone else of course. We are all made up of the little bits of  everything that are our day-to-day lives. It's how we form the memories, some bad, some good, that we reminisce about as the years go by. Oh hang on a minute...I'm a writer (it said so in the list) so I am a little bit different after all. Its why I store all those experiences in my sub-conscious until I'm ready to retrieve them and download them onto the pages of my latest manuscript.

I'm not proud of it, but it's how it is. When I travel most of the details of the journey remain lodged in my brain. A new environment is uploaded to my sub-conscious lock, stock and barrel and sits there until I need it.  Time spent with my grandchildren, visits to family, walking the dog, talking with friends, shopping for a neighbour, even visiting someone in hospital...it all goes into the swirling cauldron of memories that I call upon when I'm writing.

Sometimes an experience will trigger an idea for a story and when that happens, it will, if left to its own devices, weave itself around the memories I have stored in my head, rejecting some of them and trying others for size until the outline of a new story emerges with very little conscious effort on my part. It's not until I fire up my lap top that the real effort of joining it all together begins.

In Reluctant Date the trigger was a place I stayed on a holiday. This somehow wove itself into another landscape 3,000 miles away, picking up a hero and heroine on its journey. In Mending Jodie's Heart the idea for the story was prompted by an actual event involving horses and disabled children, which, before I knew it, had turned into the When Paths Meet trilogy. Then, in my latest book, Miss Locatelli, half-forgotten memories of Italy forced themselves back into my consciousness as soon as I realized my heroine had to visit Florence. A magazine article about a jeweller triggered that one.

When I look back at the dozen or so books I've written so far there is a real bonus, however, because every one of them has special memories woven into the story. None of them are about me or my family although, inevitably, some of the characters will display traits I've observed in the people I know, but the story still resonates with me on a personal level. The children in my books often behave in the same way my own children and grandchildren did when they were small, and then there are the animals. Dogs, horses, birds...even the wild ones...all trigger a memory. The grown up characters too. I rarely spend long describing any of them. They are just part of a continuing story of memories that I like to think helps to make my stories real.

So that's who I am. Someone who is made up of little bits of a lot and who never knows which bit she is going to wake up to.  Today it was the micro-managing/list-making persona. Tomorrow it's grandchildren day, so cooking, cuddling and playing games will dominate along with supervising homework and listening closely to whatever they want to tell me.  With any luck I'll wake up to my writing persona the following day and by then I'll have more memories to call upon, so when the book I'm writing at the moment, Remembering Rose, is published at the end of June, I will be able to read it and remember.

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All of Sheila's books can be found on the links below:

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She also has a website and can be found on facebook

Where I Get My Ideas by Roseanne Dowell

I'm often asked where I get ideas for my books.
The answer is really quite simple. Everywhere. The idea for Trouble Comes in Twos came from a visit to Locust Grove Cemetery in Twinsburg, Ohio. I have a thing for cemeteries. Not sure why, but ever since Junior High, I've loved going to cemeteries and reading the headstones, especially the old ones.
What sparked the idea for Trouble - Twinsburg was named for identical twins, Moses and Aaron Wilcox.The actual cemetery is set way back from the street, down a long drive. We almost drove past it and only saw it because we stopped at a traffic light.

A cemetery vault  sat to the left of the drive, not far from the street.. Bodies were stored in vaults during the winter when the ground was too frozen to dig the graves. We paid several visits to the cemetery before I actually saw inside. Now it's used to store tools and such.



As I walked around the cemetery reading the gravestones, I came across the headstone for Moses and Aaron Wilcox. I

loved the wording on the headstone, so different from the inscriptons today. It reads: Moses and Aaron Wilcox who died Sept. 24 AD 1826 AE55   The former of them was born before the latter and survived him 19 min 35 sec. They married sisters and always continued together in business and for last 25 years were members of the Congregational Church. In 1812 they visited this town held and purchased 4000 acres of it and at their request was named Twinsburg. Their remains now lie deposited in one grave beneath here.
The twins were so identical only their closest friends could tell them apart.They held all their property in common, married sisters, had the same number of children, contracted the same fatal ailment and died within hours of each other.
Next to the cemetery is a home for seniors. As I stood in the far corner of this solemn place, it occurred to me how lonely and desolate it was even though it was in the middle of town.  On the other side of the cemetery is a strip of stores. As I stood there, looking at the graves, an idea began to form.What if someone was murdered there? How long before someone found the body. Most of the graves are from years earlier. How many visitors came? By the time I arrived home, I couldn't wait to start writing.


Trouble Comes in Twos is available from Amazon
After a five year absence, Kate Wesley returns to Twinsburg Ohio to open a florist shop. She’s content with life until Mark Westfield enters the picture. To make matters worse her ex fiancé is back in town, looking to pick up where they left off, and she’s attracted to both men. As if her life isn’t complicated enough, she finds a dead body in the cemetery, the twin sister of the victim shows up and another body is discovered. Can Kate sort through the confusion her life has become or will she become the next victim?

You can find all of Roseanne Dowell's books at:
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Books We Love