Where Do You Get Your Inspiration?

I'm asked a lot where I get inspiration for my writing. It's one of those questions that always seems to come up in an interview. To be honest, it's one of those things that you'd think would be easy to answer, but is usually rather complicated. Inspiration is an interesting thing. It can happen at any given time, and often does. It has no rhyme or reason, and often doesn't make any kind of sense.

A perfect example of this was the inspiration for my Finding Anna Series. It all started one day when I was chatting with an online friend. She'd read this BDSM story and said I needed to read it too. I was hesitant since I'd never read that kind of story before, but she kept after me and eventually I broke down and gave it a try.

I was shocked to find that I enjoy it. Yes, it was different. But what drew me in was the trust and communication that was required in order for the relationship to work.

A month or so after I finished reading that story, there was breaking news about a young woman who'd been held captive by a man for years. In the United States.

While there may have been stories here and there about kidnapping and human trafficking happening in the US, it usually involved young girls smuggled into the US across the border. This was an American girl. She was born in the US, raised in the US, kidnapped in the US, and kept in the US by a man to be his sex slave. It was shocking.

While watching some of the coverage, I got to thinking what it would be like for this girl as she tried to move on with her life. How would she deal with people? With a relationship with a man? Surely it would require a lot of trust and communication.

The wheels in my head began turning and connected the two. BDSM requires a lot of trust and communication, and that's exactly what someone like that would need after what they'd been through…a lot of trust and communication. From there, Finding Anna was born. A young woman who was held captive as a sex slave for ten months, and her relationship with the Dominant who rescues her.

What about you? Where do you get inspiration for your stories?