Make-Believe Mondays With Lucy Monroe

I'm thrilled to introduce my dear friend and mentor Lucy Monroe on our first Make-believe Monday.

Lucy writes wonderful romances filled with heroic men and modern women and she writes for three publishing houses. Berkley Sensation, Harlequin Presents and Kensington Brava. On my most recent visit to her website I counted 51 books!

She truly is an amazing author, so let's find out what she has to say about creativity and imagination.

Mark Twain said, "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." How do you fill your creative well to keep your imagination in focus?

Lucy:For one thing, you can't stay creative if all you do is create. So, taking time off from creating is a must for me...just not an easy thing to do. I also love to read magazines...not gossip rags (yuck), but stuff like "The Smitsonian", "Architectural Digest" and "Harper's Bazaar", etc. I've just recently taken up knitting and a rousing game of Perquacky with my family can be very creativity enhancing. I also read tons, both fiction and nonfiction, but romance is my favorite. I re-read my favorite authors over and over again and I think that helps me write better. Learning in cockpit as they say. But it fills up my creative well to sip at someone else's.

What a lovely thought. I can just picture authors visiting each other and dipping down to gather that cool clear water before sipping. Creative works can nourish the soul that way.

Is there a point when your characters begin to come alive and you can see and hear them?

Lucy:Usually before I ever type the first word in their story, but sometimes they are nebulous beings that only become concrete after I've really settled the first 50 or so pages of their stories. They always do become concrete and very real to me at some point in the process though.

For some writers, dreams play a role in creating fiction. Has this been true for you? Have you ever dreamed a scene or an image that later wound up in one of your books?

Lucy:I get lots of story ideas from dreams and find that I dream more vividly (and remember my dreams better) when I'm not writing. So, clearly, I've got to get better about taking time off if I want more story ideas to buzz around inside my brain. My agent calls it thinking time...for me, it's dreaming time.

Lucy, thank you for joining us and sharing a glimpse into the creative life of an author. May your dreams be plentiful and your well always full.

To learn more about Lucy and the many stories she's written, visit http:www.lucymonroe.com