Driving For Inspiration & The Title Reveal of Book III!

Since finishing writing The Nightmare Birds, all of my energy (creative and physical) has been completely and totally zapped. I'm one of those people who gets anxious though if they aren't always working on some big project, or several big projects. But, as luck would have it, every time I sat down to write, I just wasn't able. It was like my brain was frozen.

I HAD WRITER'S BLOCK! Something I had always heard about, but never really experienced...until now.

I knew that I needed to take some time off and recharge, and recharge I did. For a whole month. That might not sound like a lot, but for me it was agony. I read all of these articles on how to recharge to get back into the writer's chair and everything I saw said to read, read, read. And when not reading, watch, watch, watch. So for the entire month of August, I read as many YA, fantasy, and supernatural books I could get my hands on, and watched as many fantastical things I could watch hoping to recharge and be inspired. Stranger Things is freakin AWESOME by the way. That little girl seriously deserves an Oscar!

My goal was to start writing Book III in the Strange Luck series starting September 1, and when August 31 rolled around, I still had the same unsettling and blank feeling. That day I happened to go for a long drive down to Pittsburgh for a doctor's appointment and like a bolt of lightening, I got tons of ideas while driving, including a title! Suddenly my brain felt completely recharged. But why then? Why when I was driving?

To psychoanalyze myself for a moment, I think I was inspired because I was completely alone with my thoughts. I was free to think about my book, but also free not to think about it. I came home that night and wrote down all of my ideas and expanded them more and more. Overjoyed that I had gotten my writing mojo back, I suddenly remembered that's actually how I was inspired to write Strange Luck in the first place - while driving to work one day. There's just something about driving that relaxes my brain and energizes me as a writer. This is something I need to remember for the next book!

I'm pleased to report that just over a week later, I've officially finished the first chapter! It's so much fun writing these characters, especially the new ones!

And that, my friends, is how I started writing my new book - A DARLING SECRET.