Where do we come up with these ideas?

Musings from Ahirah: One of the newest members of Siren Publishing, Bekki Lynn who just so happens to belong to the same great critique group as I do suggested that I talk about our latest WIP (work in progress). What’s to say? I love this story. I actually came up with the idea of it because of my love of kung fu movies. I’ll have to do a total separate blog and give you all the fun facts. Basically I grew up watching them in NYC, where I’m from, with my father every Saturday morning. There’s always been something attracting about marital arts to me. I don’t know if it’s the lifestyle of the Buddhist monks or perhaps the stringent training they have to go through to be the best. Perhaps it’s the different forms used. In Japanese, katas are detailed choreographed patterns of movements practiced either solo or in pair. In Chinese marital arts, forms are known as taolu.

My all time favorite kung fu movie is Five Deadly Venoms. It’s a classic and please run out and rent it QUICK!

Towns and I have been reading a lot of paranormal stories lately. Our favorite by far is by J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood Series series. Towns didn’t care for the first book but once she read the second book she was hooked line and sinker. We thought about having our heros be vampires but quickly changed our mind. There are so many different series that feature vampires as their lead characters. We wanted to break the mold and change the game so to speak. Anyway, in Chinese philosophy there is a lot of talk about the elements-metal, water, wood, fire and earth. In Japan, the philosphy includes heaven as the sixth element. Not to give too much away but our heros are "brothers" not by blood but by fate. Their powers, so to speak, manifested early on in life, always when there was a natural disaster. All of the “5 brothers” come from different ethnic backgrounds. One is mixed-Native American and Asian, another is full Asian while another is Arab. Towns and I love to write about multicultural characters, especially ones not typically portrayed in romance novels. Our heroine is African American. Being creative and developing strange and exciting worlds is half the fun when writing a novel. The other half is finishing it!