Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, which character came first? That would be Debra Jane “DJ” Collier, a Deputy US Marshal who first appeared in WOLF MOON. She was sent to east Texas in the aftermath of the Wolves little soiree there to rescue Danny and Sally and where Sean/Boomer met Annie. Then came ROGUE MOON telling Rudy and Isabelle’s story. That’s when Antoine came into being–a reason for Izzy not to freak out about Liam and Rudy. At the time, Antoine was meant to be a secondary character only. Except he’s Cajun. And a Wolf, albeit an almost feral and definitely a lone Wolf. And then when the ending to ROGUE reintroduce DJ, the seed of their story took root. And grew. Interestingly, I had pictures of both of them in my files before their characters came to life.

These two truly didn’t become three-dimensional until I started writing BLUE MOON. Not that they were flat in their introductory roles but their parts were small and just hinted at who they were. That was mainly be cause I had no clue who they really were. Being shy of people and civilization, Antoine had to be coaxed into revealing himself. DJ was a pistol–no pun intended–but had no real depth. She pretty much was her badge and that was it.

I’m not one of those writers who plots out the entire story before I start. I don’t have pages of notes on character development and outlines of this happens then that happens and it all goes down in this chapter. I walk into a new story knowing a little something about how my MCs (main characters) look and often have pictures for them. Usually, there’s something about a face that attracks my attention and I’ll grab the pic. Usually, the character wearing that face walks in, sits down over a cup of coffee and introduces themselves. Sometimes, I have a particular character in mind and I go searching for a photo that fits. In the cases of Antoine and DJ, it was the first then the second. Except neither of them wanted to visit. They dared me to find out who they really were. So I did. And in doing so, their story came to life.

The fun of doing a “conpendium” volume is that I get to reread and relive the stories and find out more about the characters so I can add to their personalities and the action. Antoine is still a wild thing and DJ is still driven to find justice, even if she treads that fine legal line in the sand. And she doesn’t mind at all if her colleagues (at the time) hummed the X-Files theme when she walked by. She knows the secret and they don’t.

So that’s my meanderings for this Tuesday. I hope you enjoyed this peek at what goes on inside my head at any given time during the process of creating stories I hope y’all will want to read. Thanks for being part of the pack. I’m back to work now that my eyes can actually see the computer screen again. What are y’all up to today?