As is true with many authors, the question I get most often is, “Where do you get your ideas?” And quite honestly, it is often the simplest of things that will set you off on a path. That was exactly the case with ‘The Siren’s Scream’. While sitting on a dock at a mountain cabin on a lake, I saw a small school of fish swimming beneath. A slight altercation between several of them caused one to flip over and scoot away. As the fish flipped, I saw the colors of its belly reflect in the sun and I was mesmerized. I’d seen this before, of course, most of us have, but the image of the colors flashing stayed with me. The idea of a creature living in the water began to blossom. Now, there is nothing original there, the legend of the mermaid is long and fabled and I struggled with the concept of creating an original take on the creature, a viable storyline, and how to present it in an intriguing manner for a few years. I’d started and stopped writing it many times. Every once in a while, I’d pull it out and make another attempt at creating something that wasn’t ‘calling sailors to their death’. And as they say, write every day because you can change something, you can’t change nothing and the process is what brings about results. Because of my many attempts, I discovered that I had developed parameters outlining the kind of story I wanted to tell. I wanted it to be set in the present day, I didn’t necessarily want it to be about sailors or the sea, and I wanted a twist or two that would engage the reader. Other than that, I was floundering. Then, at a family gathering, dealing with a particularly challenging sister, it occurred to me these creatures had an origin, a family, a lineage, a past; they had to come from somewhere, right? Once I began to explore that concept, one thing led to the other and the story began to take shape. After working to create this story over many years, finally, ‘The Siren’s Scream’ was born.