In case you aren't aware, the first shashoomba occurred when I was stuck trying to figure out how to remove a murder from my novel yet have the same "lack of a particular character" occur near the end of it. This kept me up at nights and forced me to eat vast quantities of vegetables (resulting in a cut-off finger tip...oh no, that happened later on, sorry) so that the heavens would open and send me down an idea that would work.

Then the great shashoomba (an idea that not only works, it rocks) arrived the moment I stopped thinking about the problem.

Fast forward to August 2007: I'm preparing myself so that I can wholeheartedly join Michelle Rowen in her next Write Ons' adventure, when she will write Stakes and Stilettos from September 15 to December 31 (and the rest of us will write something other than S&S, or that would be really weird).

The only trouble was that I hadn't figured out who the heck my hero was for my next project. That could prove to be a problem since I was planning on writing a romance novel. ;)

So I did what worked so well for me before: stopped thinking about it.

Last night, a friend and I attended the book launch for Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Stop your snickering; I understood about a third of what was being discussed with all the brainiacs in attendance.

And that's when it hit me: the shashoomba. Suddenly I knew exactly who my hero was, his fears, his desires, all wrapped up in a few delicious flaws that make him almost irresistible. Le sigh. And no, he will not have anything to do with disaster capitalism.

Now I just have to figure out what happens between page one and "The End." LOL

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