1. to develop new characters for my books

2. I LOVE road trips

3. to uncover fresh new plots

4. I love an adventure

5. to meet people from every walk of life

6. I love history and Alaska has a lot of it

7. to take in the vast beauty of Alaska

8. I love small cramped spaces (not!)

9. to experience the rugged conditions of Alaska

10. I love flat tires and engine problems (don't you?)

11. to enjoy time with good friends

12.Okay, I love my husband and he wanted to go!

13. And, I still love my husband … now that we are back from Alaska

I can’t speak for other authors, but having written more than fifty books, including AGAINST THE NIGHT my latest, out the end of February, I’m always trying to develop new story ideas.  Which is the reason, when the opportunity presented itself to travel, for a month, toAlaskaand back–in a small pickup camper–I said yes.

With four new AGAINST books out, two more coming, and a  contract for three more, I needed ideas. The trip to Alaska seemed the perfect opportunity to get some fresh new plots and characters–though the journey wasn’t my first experience with the vast beauty and rugged conditions ofAlaska.

Ten years ago, after my husband and I ventured there on a similar trip, I wrote the Romantic Suspense novel, MIDNIGHT SUN, which by the way, is being re-issued in May, with a hot new cover.

I love road trips, just heading out with no particular destination in mind, just rolling along, encountering whatever life has to offer.  It’s a riot of new vistas, different tastes, different smells, different lifestyles.  It’s dealing with flat tires and engine trouble, but also meeting people from every walk of life.

In the tiny town of Tok, Alaska, we met a group ofViet Namveterans on a Holland America bus tour.  That evening they were doing a flag-lowering ceremony, and because my husband had mentioned that a friend, a serviceman killed in Vietnam, had just been recovered that week, he was asked to do the honors of lowering the American flag.  It was an extremely moving ceremony that will stay with me forever.

If you love history, which I do, you might wind up in a place likeDawsonCity, way off the grid, the original destination forKlondikegold miners at the end of the nineteen century.  A lot of the buildings are still there, still being used, and the streets are still paved in dirt!  It’s a town right out of the wild and wooly West, a place that attracted authors like Robert Service and Jack London.

Merely by chance, we were asked to attend a special event being held for authors at the Jack London cabin there in Dawson.  There we were introduced as novelists and got to meet readers and other authors.

People often ask me where I get the ideas for stories and I can tell you that a five-thousand mile driving trip on a two lane road is stuffed with the fodder for books.  People and places you can’t even imagine come to life, filling your head with ideas for future books.

Was it romantic?  It was far more grueling than romantic, but it was a fascinating adventure.  And the people traveling with us, two other couples each with their own campers, made the trip a lot more fun.

So if you’re looking for story ideas, open yourself up to new adventures, new places, new people.  You’ll be amazed at what your inner creative mind will come up with.  In the meantime, I hope you’ll watch for Johnnie Riggs’ story, AGAINST THE NIGHT. Jake Cantrell is next in AGAINST THE SUN.

And now that I’m home from my trip, I’m hoping my weary brain will come up with stories for three books set in Alaska!  But hey, that’s way down the road. 

Till then, very best wishes to you all, Kat

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