I see live plots.

Everywhere.

Sorry, but I do.

It drives my husband crazy that we’ll go to a movie, and even as I get sucked into the plot, at the same time I’m devising another of my own.

An over-active imagination, I guess.

In fact, some of the best book plots are pulled straight from the headlines. We see it all the time. Jodi Picoult is a master at this. I tip my hat to her for hearing, or reading something, and devising a tapestry of pain and sorrow from it.

So let’s play a little game. Here are four possible plots pulled from the headlines today (just click the link, and you can read the story). Which one would make a book you’d read?

Plot #1: The Pope’s Butler Leaks Secrets to a Reporter…

A thriller, of course! Lots of potential with this one, wouldn’t you say? There’s another DaVinci Code in this one…

Plot #2: Male “Contraceptive Gene” Found…

Too funny! Could be farce or chick lit! All of a sudden, men have a gene that stops them from having children. So, how does this one play out? For example, are the guys that can have children more desirable to women? What if all these guys are fugly?

Plot #3: Elvis Presley’s Crypt to be Auctioned Off

Totally humor. Maybe paranormal. But anything with the words “Elvis” and “crypt” would get picked up by an editor, trust me on that.

Plot #4: German Girl Locked Up for Years by Bosnian Couple

A thriller, for sure! The twist is that you’re a visitor in another country when you’re taken. During captivity, you learn the language and customs, and eventually use it for your escape….

Plot with me, and win a book!

You don’t have to be a writer to have fun with this. All you need is an active imagination. What you do: Find a link to a real news story, and tell me how you’d turn it into a plot

The winner gets a digital eBook of TRUE HOLLYWOOD LIES, a dark Hollywood farce I wrote based on something I saw while I interviewed a British actor.

Bring me stories, people!

– Josie

Congrats to the following commenters for scoring a prize this week!

From Lori’s Happy Trail’s blog post – wahoo to lucky #13 – Emma Peterson! Emma, you won a copy of LOVE IS MURDER – contact Lori with your info: lorelei@loreleijames.com

From Alma Katsu’s blog post 2 weeks ago – hip hip hurray to #15 – Nicole Bush! Nicole, you won a copy of THE TAKER – contact Lori with your info – lorelei@loreleijames.com

From Allison’s blog post – Commenter #20, Catherine, wins a copy of LOVE IS MURDER. Please send
allison@allisonbrennan.com your mailing address. Congrats!

Thanks everyone and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

My original blog topic for today was the TMI factor of social media, but it occurred to me when Hurricane Willary (my son William+his wife Hillary=Willary) blew into town late last night, and after I hugged the snot out of them, that my son was  here because he had this Memorial Day weekend off.  As a young Marine who has not seen combat but who works with many brave men and women who have, this year Memorial Day takes on a whole new dimension for the Tabke clan.  So it’s kind of what I’m going to talk about:  Sacrifice.

Without it, we have nothing.  Without the ultimate sacrifice of life we would not be enjoying the freedoms we enjoy today.  I mean America rocks.  People die trying enter this country not exit it.  We are a great nation because of our military’s sacrifice, because of their families’ sacrifices and the sacrifices of ever day Americans for a better life.

Any goal worth achieving requires sacrifice. It applies to everything we do.  Our freedom as a nation has required the ultimate sacrifice.

Whether our goal is to drop ten pounds, which requires laying off the deep fried Twinkies, writing a book, which requires putting your ass in the chair, your hands on the keyboard and actually writing, learning a skill, which requires studying as well as regular practical practicing and then more practice, to achieve any goal requires sacrifice of time, family, money, fun etc.  I could go on and on here but you get my point.

Those who are not willing to sacrifice for their goal will never achieve it.  Goals don’t just show up one morning and snuggle all happy and content in our laps, they require thought, planning, and then execution, which requires, yep you guessed it, sacrifice.

Sacrifice n: a : destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.

Sacrifice isn’t easy.  That’s why it’s called sacrifice.

I’m not the best sacrificer in the world.  I’m not the worst either, but this Memorial Day I’ve taken a good long hard look at myself and decided if my son is willing to go into harm’s way to protect my freedoms, then damn it, I can get off my ass and make some sacrifices for those who sacrifice for me.

It has also occurred to me that in my goal quests, I need to sacrifice more if I am going to achieve them.  I’ve been slacking lately and that is coming to an abrupt end.

How about you?  What cause have you sacrificed for lately? 

I’m in the middle of revising STALKED, the fifth Lucy Kincaid book which comes out on October 30. Normally, having three weeks to revise a book is about right, but I’m also in the middle of the last two weeks of school — which includes field trips, performances, and a high school graduation for my oldest! Needless to say, I’m a bit overwhelmed. On Wednesday I took my youngest on a field trip to a farm and am wiped out. However, I exceeded my required 35 pages a day revision schedule by TWO pages, whoo hoo! I needed it because I was behind on the weekend.

As you now know, some of our beloved MSW bloggers are leaving us. Not because they don’t love us (and you!) but because blogging can be time-consuming and writing must always come first. And they are welcome to guest blog whenever they want — we’ll make them visit! The rest of us have been brainstorming, wanting to keep the blog a fun place for us, our readers, and fellow writers. We decided that the way to do that is to reboot the blog.

We’re coming up with a new look and format and are very excited about the possibilities — the blog will be cleaner, tighter, and focus on why you visit us every week, or every day. We’re also bringing in new bloggers from the suspense and romantic suspense world (though our MSW alumni can never be truly replaced.) I can’t name names yet, but I think you’ll be just as excited as all of us!

Because of the pending changes, there may be a few off days, but hang in because I promise it’ll be worth it

What we want from YOU, our loyal readers, is to know what YOU’D like to see in our MSW reboot. I know I love talking about movies, television and writing … and of course books! What do you all want to talk about? What kind of features would you like to see on a regular basis? What are some of your favorite blogs you like to visit? (Warning: Don’t put in a URL because you’ll be sent to our spam folder … if you put the blog or e-zine in this kind of format, it should work: allisonbrennan (dot) com — we’ll know what to type!)

We’re interested in you all, because we want to make Murder She Writes a welcoming stop on your daily cyber journey. We know you’re just as busy as we all are, and want to make your time with us count.

So share away — what you love, what you hate, what you want more of, less of, or something completely different. We’re all ears! And as a thank you, I’m giving away a copy of LOVE IS MURDER, a romantic suspense anthology edited by Sandra Brown. (And yes, I stole this idea from Lori!) I’ve read every story in this amazing anthology, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and it’s truly a fabulous collection. I’m very proud to be a part of it!

Thanks for being part of our community. We appreciate your continued support and involvement.

Well, MSW’ers….the time has come for me to mosey along down the trail…so this will be my last post for Murder She Writes.

Why? Did I win the lottery and I’m giving up writing forever to run my own cattle ranch in Hawaii? Umm, no. It’s a factor of time – which seems to be in short supply in my life of late, and that my focus in the world of publishing isn’t as much on writing murder these days as it for me penning books about hot cowboys. But never fear, these wonderful women who write the most kick ass suspense books in the industry will have some cool news coming up about changes to this blog.

It was a hard decision to make because this has been such a great run the last 2 1/2 years. I’ve made lifelong friends with the amazing women on this blog and I admire all of them so much. They’ve been a source of strength for me, we’ve shared joys, sorrows, triumphs and pitfalls, not only with the crazy world of publishing, but with our personal lives too.

Saying goodbye isn’t easy…so I won’t drag it out. And who knows, I might pop in and say howdy once in a while

Thanks to everyone who made my time here something I’ll never forget.

Lori/Lorelei~

PS – for my last contest I’ll give away a copy of LOVE IS MURDER, an anthology which releases next week that includes a Mercy Gunderson short story, as well as short stories by MSW superstars Allison Brennan, Laura Griffin, Deb Webb, Toni Causey and Roxanne St. Claire –