This is a question that people have asked me about writing fiction. Where do my ideas come from? The answer to that is simple: They are everywhere.
 
If you look at situations and people as subjects for a romance novel or novella, it’s not hard to imagine stories around them, once you get in the habit of doing so. Keep your notebook handy.
 
Here is an example:  Recently a distant relative of mine got married in Hawaii. I saw the photos on Facebook, looked at the beautiful bride, and enjoyed the romantic, tropical setting. I don’t know these people personally so I don’t know their actual story. What I can do is use their photos as a jumping off point for creating a romantic plot.

The first step to coming up with a romance plot is to ask, what if?

• What if the bride only knew the groom for a week before she married him? 
• What if the groom is on the run from the law?
• What if the bride is on the run and the groom doesn't know it?
• What if the bride’s family doesn’t want her to marry him?
• What if the bride has been married before—to an abuser who is after her?
• What if leading up to the wedding, one of the couple became seriously ill?
  
• What if one of the bridesmaids is secretly in love with the would-be groom and will do anything...?
  

If you have ever spent time in an airport waiting for your flight to be called, you’ve had lots of time to watch people and make up stories about them. The tired-looking woman in the business suit—see her over there, texting—perhaps she has spent so much time on the road that her boyfriend is losing interest. What does she have to do to keep her relationship alive? Or, perhaps she is never in on place long enough to have a relationship but she longs for a romance and a family.
 
A man wearing climbing gear sits next to the window reading a newspaper. Where has he come from and where is he going? Is there a woman in the city wishing he loved her more than he loves the mountains? You have enough conflict there to create a dynamic plot.

The young adults playing volleyball on the beach all look so happy and carefree. But what if that girl with the brown ponytail looks longingly at the tall, blonde guy who never seems to notice her? What is their story?
 
The choice, of course, is yours. You can make up any tale you like about anyone you like. Put them in a setting that appeals to you, and in a situation that is difficult. Give them an attraction for each other, but lots of obstacles that they have to overcome before getting together.

When you figure out those basics, voilà! You have a romantic plot.

Need inspiration? Subscribe to Creative Inspirations Daily HERE.

I once read a story about a woman who had survived several tragedies in a fairly short time. With no warning her husband left her, someone close to her died, her house burned, and she had lost her job. I’m not going to say that she didn’t suffer, because she did, and greatly, but she managed to pull herself together and move on.
 
She moved to a different city and started over. In the process she made the decision that she would say ‘yes’ to whatever opportunities came her way. As she made friends in her new location, she became known as the one who would always say yes to requests for new adventures. Taking this attitude completely changed the woman’s life.

I believe it will change your life, too, when you decide to say yes to life, to your dreams, or simply to a new experience.
 
It is time to say ‘yes’ to:
 

• that novel you want to read, or to write
• learning to dance
• taking that painting class
• climbing a mountain
• learning to drive or maybe skydive
• changing your hair
• studying a language
• a trip to Paris (we probably all need on of these in a lifetime)
• whatever you’ve been putting off until some day ‘when I have the time’.

 
You will never have the time is you don’t say yes now. None of us really knows how much time we have, and the tomorrow that we are putting things off until may never come. We only have so many days here on this earth and when it’s over, well dear, it’s going to be too late to take your kids to see the ocean, or go on that romantic weekend with your sweetheart, or study French.

This was brought up close and personally to me when I nearly died one night from internal hemorrhaging. Coming face to face with my own mortality made me sit up and take notice of where I wanted my life to go. I realized that the ‘some day’ I had been putting things off for, had to happen now, not later.
 
We women are often guilty of saying yes to everyone else’s wants and needs instead of our own. Doesn’t that imply that the needs of others are more important than your own? If you think about that for a moment, you must agree that it just isn’t so.
 
Everyone’s needs are of equal value, it is just more important to the owner of those needs that you drop everything and attend to them rather than to your own. Get some perspective. Just because someone demands that you submit to his or her wishes, doesn’t mean you have to do it.

Think about what you need to say yes to. Your life is numbered by days, and they go by with shocking regularity and speed. Now is the time to start saying yes to what makes your life really worthwhile. Don’t wait. Don’t put it off. Say yes now.

Not sure what you want to say yes to? My program, The Wish Plan, can help you discover what you value, and make a plan to get it.

It’s hard to keep up willpower for any length of time. Yes, we can stick to a low-fat 1,000 calorie diet and go hungry for a week or two, but eventually our willpower fades. And yes, we can do exercise we hate for a while... until we run out of willpower.
 
But what about getting up to take the kids to school every morning, brushing our teeth or going to work every day. Those may not be our favorite things to do either, but we do them daily without the risk of running out of willpower. That’s because they have become habits. They are so ingrained in what we do and who we are that we do them without even considering skipping a day or a week. We don’t have to make a conscious decision each day to shower or drive to work. It’s just what we do – a habit.

When you start to think about it, there is an inverse relationship between habits and will power. When you first want to build a new creative habit, say, write or paint every day, it takes a lot of will power or self-discipline to get it done day in and day out. As you start to establish that habit, it becomes easier and easier to do until you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Doing your creative work is just part of your daily life.
 
Just being aware of this process helps us stick it out. We know we don’t always have to make such a big effort to go work out or skip the donut for breakfast. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We know eventually it will become habit to go write for fifteen or thirty minutes first thing in the morning or grab your paintbrush and add a few more strokes to your work in progress.
 
While we’re in that transition from willpower to habit, we can use tools to make it easier. Use a to-do list or creative planner or set a reminder to help stay on track. Find an accountability partner so the two of you can motivate each other and help bolster that willpower when it starts to fade after the first enthusiasm wears off. Compare daily word count or report in with each other every day. Even something as simple as laying out your craft materials—brushes, paints, novel research, etc.—will give you a jump start on getting at it in the morning.
 

Do what you can to help your self-discipline along until you have made the new behavior a true habit. After that it’ll be easy and automatic and you’ve created a new lifelong habit.

For daily Creative Inspirations to keep your motivation high, subscribe to Creative Inspirations Daily HERE.

This is a question that people have asked me about writing fiction. Where do my ideas come from? The answer to that is simple: Ideas are everywhere.

If you look at situations and people as subjects for your romance novels or novellas, it’s not hard to imagine stories around them, once you get in the habit of scanning your thoughts for ideas.

Here is an example:  Recently a distant relative of mine got married on a beach. I saw the photos on Facebook, looked at the beautiful bride, and enjoyed the romantic, tropical setting. I don’t know these people personally so I don’t know their actual story. What I can do is use their photos as a jumping off point for creating a romantic plot.

The first step to coming up with a romance plot is to ask, what if?

• What if the bride only knew the groom for a week before she married him?
• What if the groom is on the run from the law?
• What if the bride’s family doesn’t want her to marry him?
• What if the bride has been married before—to an abuser who is after her?
• What if leading up to the wedding, one of the couple became seriously ill?
• What if the bride has three grown children who disapprove of her choice in a mate?
• What if she can't walk down the aisle after all because she's really in love with someone else?

If you have ever spent time in an airport waiting for your flight to be called, you’ve had lots of time to watch people and make up stories about them. The tired-looking woman in the business suit—see her over there, texting—perhaps she has spent so much time on the road that her boyfriend is losing interest. What does she have to do to keep her relationship alive? Or, perhaps she is never in one place long enough to have a relationship but she longs for a romance and a family.

A man wearing climbing gear sits next to the window reading a newspaper. Where has he come from and where is he going? Is there a woman in the city wishing he loved her more than he loves the mountains? You have enough conflict there to create a dynamic plot.

The young adults playing volleyball on the beach all look so happy and carefree. But what if that girl with the brown ponytail looks longingly at the tall, blonde guy who never seems to notice her? What is their story?

The choice, of course, is yours. You can make up any tale you like about anyone you like. Put them in a setting that appeals to you, and in a situation that is difficult. Give them an attraction for each other, but lots of obstacles that they have to overcome before getting together. When you figure out those basics, voilà! You have a romantic plot.

A perfect day for a ride on the ferry to Vancouver Island.

The scenery in the passage is incomparable.

The doors were open so we ventured into this beautiful church near downtown Victoria.

What would a trip to Victoria be without a stop at Munroe's Books? Incomplete, of course.

British Columbia's provincial legislature building at Victoria harbour.

The historic and beautiful Empress Hotel where they serve high tea. (We didn't stop for it this time.)

A flower-decked downtown Swan's Hotel. Everything is within easy walking distance in downtown Victoria.

We discovered this little mossy pocket garden with a waterfall off a narrow alley.

One of the city's beaches. Surprisingly empty for such a beautiful day but then, it was Tuesday afternoon.

Another installment in the West Coast adventure. The Point Wilson lighthouse at Port Townsend.

Boats and more boats in a tiny bay near Port Hadlock. I love being places with names that include words like port, bay, beach, cove, and harbour. They all mean that there is an ocean or sea nearby.

I turned around and there were these seaside cottages for students at the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building at Port Hadlock. Peering through the window of the school, I saw some beautiful boats taking shape. And no, I'm not going to build my own boat any time soon. I wrote about a couple of boats in my novel, Picking up the Pieces.

I had to run to capture this shot of the sailboat passing by the ferry dock in Port Townsend. Unfortunately, it had clouded over by late afternoon. Soon the ferry from Whidbey Island sailed up, we drove on, and off we went to Oak Harbor.

It's no secret that I love the ocean and get close to it, either on a boat or ship, or with my toes in the sand at a beach, at every opportunity.

Last week I went on a little trip with my husband and we took the ferry from Coupeville, WA, to Port Townsend. The sky cleared and the sea breezes were fresh.

Since I'm usually the family photographer, I've begun to realize that there are very few photos of me in the family archives. When I think of it, I am now trying to get someone to snap a few shots of me for posterity. In this one, I'm on the top deck of the ferry crossing Admiralty Inlet in Washington state. And no, I'm not the admiral.

Sometimes when you have a dream of accomplishing something, be it big or small, and it never seems to work out, or things keep not going your way, it's hard not to get discouraged.

The word, discourage, implies loss of hope, courage, or confidence. You can become disheartened or even filled with despair. These are powerful emotions. But, they are just emotions.

Recently, I was praying about something that had discouraged me. I felt that loss of hope and confidence, wondering if I was doing the right things in my life and why they were not going better. In the midst of my praying, I heard the voice of God whisper to me, "Moods are not the same as truth."

We often let moods and emotions control our actions and choices. When emotions are driving your bus, you can head off in any direction but not necessarily toward the destination of choice. Moods and emotions can derail your plans and goals and side-track your dreams faster than just about anything else. For example, if I let my moods dictate what I'm going to do today, I might just go back to bed.

It's not always easy to see when an emotion doesn't accurately reflect reality, especially when we're sinking into depths of despair or discouragement. So, what do you do about those times when discouragement seems to have the upper hand?

Here are a few strategies I've developed:

1. Ask yourself what is the worst that can happen if you follow through on your negative emotional state. This could mean giving up your dream, going broke, family discord. Really? How accurate is that? Sometimes looking at what you have to lose is motivation enough to get up, shake yourself off and keep going.
2. Hold your emotions up against the truth. Are you really in imminent danger? Is this emotion just a down day because you didn't sleep well or a single event didn't go right? What is the truth about your situation?
3. Try to see the bigger picture of your life. Look at what you've accomplished so far and compare that to where you've come from rather than how far you think you still have to go. Remember that many things aren't nearly as momentous or earth-shattering as we think. One of my favourite ways to put things into perspective is to say, "The world won't end if..." this happens or doesn't happen like I want it to.

People have jumped off bridges for want of money or fear of loss of face. Isn't life worth more than that? Resounding YES! So if you think that what you are struggling with today is difficult, this video below should prove encouraging and help put things in perspective.

Picking up the Pieces, Wendy Dewar Hughes Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Jill Moss is surprised when she receives her Uncle Neil Bryant’s Bible and discovers that it has certain, odd passages marked. Then she learns that her uncle has discovered an artifact in Mexico that consists of sixteen separate pieces that have been sent to people he knows and trusts. He needs her to travel all over the world to collect all sixteen pieces. Jill prays about it and listens when God tells her to help her uncle out. Thus begins a high speed adventure as Jill meets Marco Jimenez, a handsome Spaniard who helps her out as she is chased and stalked while traveling to collect the pieces of the artifact. The pieces are written in three different and distinct languages: Olmec, Mayan and Hebrew. How is this possible when these three cultures did not exist together and what is the significance of it all? 

The adventures Wendy Hughes puts her heroine through are both thrilling and exhilarating, as are her captivating descriptions of the terrain and beauty of the countries that are visited. It is amazing how beautifully she marries such diverse points of view, taking passages from the bible and scientific knowledge and creating a story that makes a believer out of the reader. The fast paced adventures and love interest keeps the reader eager and unable to put this story down!  

Rose Mary Espinoza, InDTale Magazine
http://www.indtale.com/reviews/picking-pieces

   A few days ago I found some old 3.5" floppy disks that I thought had been lost forever. They contained, among other files, the only digital copy of the first novel I wrote as well as, to my surprise and delight, several other pieces of writing that I had forgotten all about. Thankfully, my husband is still using an older computer so I was able to get my files onto a memory stick. The following short story, called The Library, was an early attempt at writing suspense.

The Library

    Deep in the bowels of the library, in the second basement where the books on the obscure sciences were shelved, she stood, absorbed in a paragraph about the discovery of the mu-meson.  Unaware of time, her finger traced the words. A stringy voice crackled over the sound system announcing that the library would be closing in five minutes. She didn't hear it.

    The book in her hand snapped closed and, looking up, she selected three others from the shelf and headed for the elevator. The library seemed dim, she realized, looking around. There was no one in sight. She pressed the up arrow of the elevator and glanced at her watch. 5:37. The library is supposed to close at five o'clock. Why didn't they announced it? 

    She heard a sound behind her, like footsteps. She swallowed. Perhaps she wasn't the only one here. The doors of the elevator slid open and she scurried inside, turning around so she could look out. She jabbed the CLOSE DOOR button and then MAIN.  

    Stepping out of the elevator on the main floor, she was startled by a sound off to her left. She froze and listened.

    Nothing.

    Cautiously, she started toward the exit doors, keeping her heels up and rolling on the balls of her feet so as to make no sound. 

    There it was again. It sounded like footfalls on the old hardwood floor. She veered right and tiptoed between the soaring shelves then crouched to peer between the levels of books in the direction of the sound. 

    Nothing. 

    Creeping forward, she edged between the rows toward the door. Another snap sounded, behind her, off to her left. Her heart pounded in her throat now. Her breath came in shallow gasps. She opened her mouth so that her breathing would be silent.  Every sound counted. She started down another row of books. 

    She could see the door. 

     Rustling. A ski jacket sleeve brushing against the side of a body? She could feel the dampness in her armpits. Sprinting for the door, she rammed her body against the handle bar. Her head struck the glass but the door held. She whimpered and struck the bar frantically with both hands. 

    The door was locked. Spinning around, she flattened herself against it, her eyes flicking around the huge room, darting between the towering rows of books. 

      Again the floor creaked, this time farther to her right. She lunged behind the librarians' station and searched for a telephone. Snatching up the receiver she saw the number for Campus Security on a sticker and stabbed the buttons with a numb finger. 

      "I'm locked in the library," she whispered to the voice that answered. Peering around the corner of the counter she pleaded, "Get me out of here."

       She sank to the floor and leaned her head against a filing cabinet. The dark fluorescent tubes pinged overhead. Bookshelves groaned and cracked. The library was cooling off in the dusk. She sat and listened. Slowly, she realized that the creaking and snapping came from all over the room. Of course, the library was settling in for the night. 

      Outside, she could hear scuffling and then a key turned in the lock. The door swung open and a uniformed security guard strode in. She jumped to her feet.

      "You all right?" the guard asked.

       "I'm fine," she said, straightening. "Let's go."

In February, the Greater Vancouver Chapter of the Romance Writers of America held a Valentine's Lunch in Steveston, B.C. It was a lovely time, the sun shone, awards were handed out for writing and publishing achievements and many door-prizes were given away.

I received two awards. One was for "Pitching and submitting to an agent in Emerald City (Writers' Conference) and entering two writing contests in 2012". The second was "in recognition of independently publishing two books, Picking up the Pieces and Turning on the Light - Finding Your Sweet Place in the Spirit."

I met new people who do not regularly attend the meetings and got to know others better over a delicious lunch. The whole affair was grace and elegance. Many, many thanks to the organizers.

Picking Up the Pieces by Wendy Dewar Hughes awarded an INDIE 1st Place Blue Ribbon – Inspirational Romantic/Suspense Category By chanti On January 13, 2013.

In News Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media is pleased to announce that Wendy Dewar Hughes has won 1st place in the INDIE Awards, Inspirational Romantic/Suspense Category (a division of Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Writing Contests).

Picking Up the Pieces by Wendy Dewar Hughes 

[Editor's Note: This gripping novel is well-crafted, well-plotted and  suspenseful. It is not your typical "inspirational" novel. Hughes successfully blurs  genres with her well-honed storytelling abilities. ] Chanticleer Book Review Blue Ribbon Awards Writing Contests recognize outstanding books and manuscripts. We are honored to announce the INDIE Awards First Place Blue Ribbon winning novels and their authors. Each winning INDIE  novel was judged for the following qualities:

• Compelling-ness of story
• Professionalism of editing & formatting
• Characterization
• Continuity of story-line
• Satisfying ending (not necessarily “happy”)
• Intriguing opening
• Uniqueness of story
• Writing craft