Spotlight in Six - Trish Wylie

Please welcome Trish Wylie to the Spotlight in Six this month!

A reader favourite, Trish is here to talk about writing in general and her latest Romance release, The Millionaire's Proposal, in particular.

This book is the "Fall Brides" contribution to the "Bride for All Seasons" series...Welcome, Trish!

Where do you find new and fresh ideas?

In the most random of random places frankly. Magazine articles, line from a song, a scene in a movie, a conversation with a friend. It starts with that small random thing and then has a tendency to snowball…

Writers often use photos of celebrities as 'casting'. Do you do this, and who has inspired some of your characters?

Yup. I do. And I even have a theory all my own to go with it. I call it Backwards Casting and you can learn all about it on the Tips Page of my website. These days I even make up story boards with pics of each scene to help me along. In The Millionaire’s Proposal we had the very lovely Hugh Jackman as my inspiration for Ronan and the gorgeous Emily Deschanel of Bones fame as Kerry’s inspiration… I’m a bit of a fan of the tall,dark and handsome hero so a lot of my heroes have had that combo; Kyle Chandler, David Boreanaz, Eric Bana… go Google them. You know you want to ;)

What are your favourite and least favourite parts of writing a novel? Is there a particular section that you struggle with?

My favorite part is the creative stage.The part where your imagination can let loose and run wild and free. My least favorite is of course that horrific middle section of the story when all you want to do is get to the good stuff but your word count says a big fat NO. It’s probably because it involves discipline – and I parted the ways with discipline the second I could afford to buy chocolate on my own…

When you are not writing, what do you do? How do you pamper yourself?

I’m an outdoors kinda gal so I like to go play with my horses or go for walks with the family’s gazillion dogs by the lakes or take trips abroad and go sight-seeing. It helps to balance out the many, many months I spend locked indoors tied to a computer and immobile barring the hand to mouth problem most writers suffer from. I also LOVE a day doing hair and nails followed by an afternoons shopping and dinner out somewhere with the gals. BLISS.

Imagine you're stranded - where are you and who are you with?

Oooohhh. Anywhere??? Can I be stranded on a Fiji island like the one out of this month’s book? I based it on Turtle Island. Doesn’t it look like heaven on earth??? And I think for conversation, mental stimulation and erm… well… you can fill in the blank here yourself… I’d quite like to be stranded with a cross between Nathan Fillion, David Boreanaz and Tom Welling.

Not asking much, am I? And now we can ALL SEE why I’m still single, can’t we?!

Finally,Trish, please tell us what's up and coming for you in the months ahead!

The Millionaire’s Proposal is the last Romance of 2008 for me, (but I do have a Presents out in the States in December). In 2009 I have a February book for the Romance line titled Manhattan Boss, Diamond Proposal. With a hint of Breakfast at Tiffany’s running through it, the book is one of several Diamond Themed books in celebration of Harlequin’s 60th Anniversary in 2009!

NOW COMES THE FUN PART! For your chance to win a signed copy of The Millionaire's Proposal, send an e-mail to hrablog@hotmail.com with the subject line TRISH! You have until the 30th, and then we'll be drawing! Good luck!