I have always loved books and always wanted to write. For years, my writing was limited to business writing for my PR and marketing jobs. Then, back-to-back health crises -- a shattered pelvis and ovarian cancer -- gave me the downtime to try my hand at fiction. In a way, those experiences were blessings in disguise!
Sure. All the time. It might be an actual event, it might be a conversation, or it might just be a feeling I had that translates to a character in one of my novels.
It varies by book. For my new #MeToo novel, "Horseshoes and Hand Grenades", success is encouraging women or any victim of sexual harassment or abuse to acknowledge that their experience, no matter what the level of "severity", counts, and they deserve to heal.