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Daryl Wood Gerber aka Avery Aames
People often ask: where do you
get your ideas? I love to watch people; I love to observe
life; I have a very vivid imagination. I often think: what
if. What if that woman is really a spy? What if that man is
having an affair? The question: what if is a great start for
coming up with ideas. At other times, I draw inspiration from
reading the newspaper. Yes, I still receive a daily newspaper.
It, too, is a great source for stories. How about the guy
that lives in a cabin five miles from town and doesn’t
own a car? Or the small liquor store that is trying to stay
in business when the big box stores are trying to force it
out of business? Or the unsolved murder?
There
are times that I get ideas because I stumble upon them. For
example, I was at a book signing for one of my Cheese
Shop Mysteries. The signing was at a culinary bookshop
in Occoquan, VA called Salt & Pepper Books. (The store
has since moved to another location; it’s a fabulous
store. Check out its web site!) I fell in love that day. With
the cookbooks, with the variety of culinary mysteries and
fiction for sale, with the darling culinary gift items like
salt shakers and peppermills, cutting boards, decorative spatulas,
and aprons. While there, I had an aha moment. I knew that
the store would make a wonderful setting for a cozy mystery.
I wrote up a proposal and submitted it to my editor, and she
loved the idea. Because I enjoy writing culinary mysteries,
and my fans appreciate when I include food, the mention of
food, recipes, and the like, I added a café.
Why do
I write culinary mysteries? I love to cook. I love eating.
I love reading about food. During college and while pursuing
an acting career, I catered and ran restaurants, so creating
settings in and around food and kitchens comes naturally to
me. In the Cheese Shop Mysteries, the protagonist, Charlotte
Bessette, is a cheese shop owner in the quaint fictional town
of Providence, Ohio. Charlotte adores cheese and loves to
cook. In the Cookbook Nook Mysteries, the protagonist, Jenna
Hart, a former advertising executive, moves back to the fictional
coastal town of Crystal Cove, California to help her aunt
run a culinary bookshop and café. Jenna, like Charlotte,
is an avid reader and foodie, but she’s not an experienced
cook. In fact, recipes with more than five ingredients panic
her, but she’s determined to learn. I created Jenna
based on my mother, who was a brilliant woman but she never
learned how to cook. Her mother did it all. My mom taught
herself to cook over the years, and subsequently became a
wonderful cook.
Ideas.
I love them and I encourage them to come find me; granted,
I can’t keep all of them in my head, so I keep notes
in a file on my computer for future stories. I know I won’t
be able to write all the stories that come to me—I’m
not James Patterson who can hire other authors to churn out
his multiple ideas—but I love the fact that my mind
continues to come up with ideas. A vivid imagination—what
a blessing.
Do
you people watch? Do you ever think “what if”?
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