Things that make you go Ooh! in the night

It happened to me yesterday, one of those moments that make you go Ooh! Things were getting hot and steamy, I was wearing next to nothing, and...

No, not that! I was at the gym, just lying back and relaxing in the sauna after a good workout, and things in my head suddenly fell into place like pieces of a jigsaw, and damn, but I didn't have a phone or notebook to hand! So I did what I always do: I started reciting the key points over and over in my head so that they'd stick until I could get to the changing room and make notes on my phone.

Those moments are magic, the real high points of the creative process.

Right now I'm working on the third of four volumes of my The Object of His Desire erotic romance series. There are lots of story strands going on and I've reached the point where I need to draw some of them together in this instalment and set up the drama for the final one. Sometimes it's just a matter of hard graft: working things out, consciously crafting the story.

But sometimes...

Sometimes you're lying in the sauna and your subconscious does the work, throwing all the pieces of jigsaw in the air and then watching as they miraculously fall into place. Last week I was lying in bed, struggling to get to sleep, and it happened then. That time I had my phone to hand, so I just reached over and wrote the ideas down so I wouldn't lose them when I slept.

When you're a writer, sometimes things really do make you go Ooh! in the middle of the night.