Today's Guest Author is Barbara Bretton

Today our guest author is Barbara Bretton. Her most recent novel is Casting Spells, about a quaint little town that seems perfect to the outside eye-but really it is home to all kinds of paranormals. The main character is a sorceress with no magic who owns the knitting shop and acts as major of the town- Chloe.

Today Barbara discusses ideas.

Ask a writer where she gets her ideas and you always get the same answer.

Everywhere.

And it's true. Ideas really are everywhere. They're in the produce aisle of Shoprite. They're in the local diner. Sometimes they're even on some gorgeous tropical beach, hiding at the bottom of a pitcher of lovely margaritas.

I'm a writer. Over the course of twenty-something years, I've published almost fifty books and that means I know a little something about ideas and where they come from.

Which is why I'm going to tell you exactly where I got the idea for CASTING SPELLS.

My dentist's waiting room while I was preparing to die.

Now I hate dentists. Okay, not the actual dentists themselves. Some of them are very lovely people. But, let's be honest here: the things they do to our poor unsuspecting mouths are probably against the laws of the Geneva Convention. Needles, drills, all manner of sharp instruments the Marquis de Sade would have loved.

So there I was, sitting alone in the waiting room, trying not to hear the cries of pain coming from the other room. (Yes. I'm exaggerating.) I had already flipped through back copies of the American Dental Association journal when my gaze landed on a fancy display of brochures for (hold on) dental implants.

Not exactly the kind of reading that puts you in a relaxed frame of mind but I'm one of those people who'll read the backs of cereal boxes so I grabbed for it. To my surprise it was kind of interesting. You could still eat steak without worrying that your teeth will land on the table. I could see the benefit. No wonder he had the stack of brochures placed next to a back issue of AARP's Modern Maturity.

Suddenly a question popped into my head, "But what happens to an aging vampire when his teeth start to go? Do they make uppers and lowers for the undead? Is there a dentist out there who would fit a vampire with implants?"

I pretty much giggled my way through my time in the dental chair, thinking of the possibilities.

And then I forgot all about it for almost four years until I was chatting on the phone with a knitter/writer friend of mine. We were talking about what makes one yarn shop better than the rest and I said, "I wish there was a magic knit shop where your yarn never tangled, your sleeves always came out the same length, and you always, always got gauge." (If you're a knitter, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.)

Well, the next day my imagination was on fire. It was Labor Day 2006. A cold rainy September Monday. I'm not sure how the two ideas came together but they did and in a few hours I suddenly had created the magical town of Sugar Maple, Vermont with its resident vampires, werewolves, witches, trolls, house sprites, shapeshifters, mountain giants, and Chloe Hobbs, the half-human half-sorceress owner of the knit shop of my dreams. Toss in a murder, a Fae enemy, and a hunky human cop who comes to town to solve the crime and you have CASTING SPELLS which, I'm happy to say, is still available. And I'm even happier to say that the sequel, LACED WITH MAGIC, will be on the stands August 4.

(And yes I do have some retired vampires in my book who zip around in Rascals and don't let dentures slow them down.)

I'm giving away five copies of CASTING SPELLS to five lucky readers. All you have to do is leave a comment and I'll choose five winners at random on Sunday. Winners' names will be posted here and on my blog at http://bmafb.blogspot.com/ – I look forward to hearing from you.

Drop by my website http://www.barbarabretton.com/ or my knitting blog http://www.romancingtheyarn.blogspot.com/ and say hello! There's always a contest going on.

Thanks for joining us today Barbara! I can't wait to read Laced with Magic. And Good Luck to all those who enter the contest for a copy of Casting Spells.

Remember everyone who enters please make sure you leave contact info so if you are chosen you can receive your free book. Thanks! ~RR