Jumping Outside The Box

Jumping Outside the Box
For those familiar with my work you’ll know that this is not the first time I’ve strayed from the box some have labeled romance. I’ve dabbled in paranormal a time or two.  In two days, my new paranormal romance series, THE SHADOW SHIFTERS, will begin. Squeee!! I am more than excited about these books, moreso these characters that I believe will have readers thinking twice about their co-workers or even people they see on the subway every day.
My father once asked me, “How do you come up with this stuff?” I sort of shrugged—yeah I still do that with my parents, terrible habit—and I replied, “It just comes to me.” I tend to write what I like to read and I’ve accepted that not everything I write will be available for all to read, hence the stories have stored on a USB drive titled “Extras”. It may be hard to believe, but I am such an introverted person. This gives me more than enough time to imagine just about anything. LOL And that’s exactly how I work. I see things, hear things, watch movies, listen to music and become inspired. Then I sit and think. And think some more. An idea is formed and I think some more. It takes about a day or two before I actually write anything down. I figure if the idea is still on my mind by that time, then it’s worth writing.
I’ve always been a closet sci-fi junkie. But again, not the normal type—if I think about myself too long I’d probably figure out there’s not a lot that is “normal” about me.  So, I love Star Wars, am almost fanatical about The Jedi and The Republic. On the other hand I’ll never be considered a Trekkie—Star Trek just never clicked for me. It’s sort of how I love yellow mustard but despise even the look of mayonnaise. But alternative worlds are interesting, especially when the one we’re living in can get you down on any given day. When I enter the paranormal realm I feel like anything is possible. My editor even told me, “If you think something is just totally outrageous, write it.” And so I did. 
THE SHADOW SHIFTERS are rooted in a lot of very real elements—rainforests in Brazil, jaguars that are sleek and powerful, humans constantly judging one another based solely on what they see. I simply took them one step further. But really, when someone you see every day at work for instance, goes home at night, how do you know they don’t really shift into a big cat? SHADOW SHIFTERS look just like humans, they eat, sleep, work and love, just as the general population does. That’s how they’ve managed to keep their secret. Of course, as well all know, secrets have a way of eventually being revealed. I’m not the first author to introduce a species of shape shifting humans, and most likely will not be the last. Still, there’s something uniquely human about these shifters, some of their desires and goals correlate with what we human’s call “happily ever after”. How they get to that point is the intriguing part.
Am I still loyal to the romance genre? You bet I am! This is simply a different route to falling in love because really, not every couple shares the same blueprint to success. For the SHADOW SHIFTERS I not only stepped outside the box, I think I stood on it a couple of times, jumped up and down, then ran away from it and came sliding back. In the end, the guy still gets the girl or rather, the girl tackles the guy roars some sense into his thick skull then lures him into the forest where they…you guessed it, live happily ever after—or something like that.