In Just Like My Coffee, the main character, Jolene is part me and someone else. The way she was close to her mother, and the way she wasn't prepared for the mother's death is similar to my own experience. Jolene came from wanting to create a woman who is flawed, possibly damaged, misunderstood, and yet has enough qualities to attract a good guy and somehow keeps him attracted to something about her.
The plot for Love And A Heart Place was born from another story idea I was writing and half way through I didn't like it. I had to soften up all the characters which became a complete rewrite. Valentine started out as this miserable person and a lot older. She was based on a family member who blamed everything gone wrong in her life on her parents. I started imagining how her life could have been different if she'd treated people nicer and exerted a little more effort into going for what she wanted. Valentine, in Love And A Heart Place, is the result of a younger woman who is headed down the road to bitterness but saw a chance for love and went for it.
One book review I've gotten that warms my heart is for Just To See Him Again. It's actually the only review I've gotten for it to date but still it's special. This story was all I wanted it to be and this reviewer got it. In the review she talked to me, told me I was an artist. First time ever someone told me that! And then she said I made her cry. To make someone laugh or cry or even mad means the story touched them. And that makes it art to me. Well, I was glad to read her review because it was the first one and she told me why she loved it and thought it was beautiful.
If I have to say what story I enjoyed writing the most would have to be In Too Deep. I explored how far love could take someone knowing he wasn't in the other person's best interests. This male lead wasn't the typical male for me. In other genres, he'd be classic. I wasn't trying to make the reader love him but maybe understand him as a kind of modern day Heathcliff or something.
