FAMILY & Character Fodder

Hi everyone!
I have a special treat for you today - a guest visit from super-talented, somewhat new author, Lisa Cooke. I read Lisa's first book and was blown away. I adore historicals, and Lisa writes exactly the kind I enjoy most, meaning sexy, fun, fast-paced and with awesome heroes. I'll be first in line for her newest book, A MIDWIFE CRISIS, due out in February. (It'll probably hits shelves late January.)

Please give Lisa a gigantic "Quill" welcome!

Thank you, Lori!
And thank you to the Quills for inviting me to guest blog today. I’m truly honored to be sharing cyberspace with such an amazing group of authors.

The topic I’d like to discuss today is: Family—can’t live with them, can’t write without them.
I have a large family. We’re talking aunts and uncles out the wazoo, and more than 20 first cousins on both sides. And I love everyone one of them…okay, some more than others, but I love them all. We’ve vacationed together, celebrated the holidays together and just plain survived together for as long as I can remember.

Now that I’ve become an author, I’ve discovered a new use for my vast and varied family--character fodder. They are now an infinite resource for the stories and characters needed to make a novel interesting. At this point, any of my family who might be reading this is probably breaking out into a cold sweat. Don’t worry, loved ones, those characters are compilations of several of my DNA cohorts, and no one will be able to recognize you specifically when the books hit the shelves.

But this does bring me to the point of this blog. Sometimes our family can be an amazing blessing, but sometimes they can make our lives miserable. That is exactly what happens to my heroine in my newest release, A MIDWIFE CRISIS. Poor Katie Napier’s family has decided she needs a husband so they find one for her. Unfortunately, they each find a different one and now Katie has three fiancés. Three! What’s a midwife to do?

Katie decides to handle the situation the best way she knows how. She gives each of her fiancés one night a week to court her, while she keeps track of their strengths and weaknesses on a list. Seems like a great plan, until she falls in love with the new doctor in town…and he’s not on the list.

I had a lot of fun writing A M IDWIFE CRISIS. I think we can all identify with meddling family members, and Katie’s zany family is about as meddlesome as they come.

How about you?
What does your family do that makes you nuts, and how have they helped you through the years?

Lisa Cooke
http://www.lisahistoricals.com/

Leisure historicals
A MIDWIFE CRISIS—January 2010
TEXAS HOLD HIM—April 2009

“There's a sweet homespun charm that makes Cooke's latest an enchanting tale. With humor that captures the setting and tenderness that depicts the warmth of the characters, Cooke will steal your heart.”
-Kathe Robin- RT 4 stars!