QUICK TIP 

I always carry a notebook or microcassette recorder because sometimes I'll hear a line or say something funny and want to remember to put that in a character's mouth, but I need to record it somehow or I'll forget.  Also, I get great ideas all the time about books and scenes and characters, and again, if I don't make a note they get forgotten.  Here's an example:

I was walking the sunny beach at ">Atlantis in The Bahamas last month and a guy tried to rent me some equipment.  Here's the conversation:

"Want to go parasailing?"

"No thanks."

"Rent a jet-ski?'

"Nope."

"A snowmobile?"

I stopped and laughed and said, "Great line; I'm stealing that."

In the book I'm now writing, Tequila Boom Boom, I already have a similar scene with a pitch from a street vendor in Mexico last year.  Here's the bit (still a rough draft):

Taz and Pete strolled along busy Fifth Avenue in ">Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It was a long pedestrian mall where shopkeepers worked the crowds of tourists that arrived daily from the beachfront hotels or the cruise ships docked at the island of Cozumel, a few miles away.

"Is this place always so busy?"

"It's quieter in the mornings. And noisier at night."

"It's fun," Pete said as he stopped to look at some Aztec silver. "Like a bazaar."

"The hustle gets to be tiresome after a while, but when I think of how much rejection these shop owners get without giving up, I have to respect them. I've had salesmen who pack it in for the day after getting shot down once."

"Something for your wife?" a Mexican said as he stepped into the street in front of Taz, with bracelets and necklaces threaded around all of his fingers.

"No thanks," Taz said. "I'm not married."

"Then something for your neighbor's wife?"

Taz laughed. "That's a good line."

"How about something for Isabelle?"

Taz stopped cold. Then he recovered quickly and went on alert. "Keep your eyes open, Pete."

"Already looking."

"Who told you to ask me about Isabelle?"

"So you are the man. Dios mio. I've been saying that line hundreds of times a day for more than a week."

"Who paid you to say it?"

The shopkeeper nodded toward a small man with a white cane who was paying his bill at the sidewalk bar. "That man promised to pay me."

Taz stared as the man walked over, tapping occasionally but obviously with some eyesight remaining. "Ah," he said, "so can I assume you are the famous Mister Keaton?"

"Who are you?"

The small man squinted at the shopkeeper, who said "He reacted to the woman's name just like you said he would."

"That's good. Thank you, Jorge." The man handed the shopkeeper a fat roll of dollars. "Can I speak with you for a few minutes, Mister Keaton?"

"I'm still watching," Pete said as he turned around in a slow circle, looking at faces and rooftops and doorways. "Nothing else weird."

"This is weird enough. I'll ask you again, sir. Who are you?"

"I am Mr. Neighorn. Thaddeus Neighorn. You are Mr. Keaton, right?"

"Who are you working for, and what do you know about Isabelle?"

"I know very little about her beyond the rumors over you two."

"Rumors?"

"Drop it, Pete."

"Rumors?" Pete repeated in a much deeper voice.

The man smiled at him. "I own the (name of missing yacht)."

"So what's with the Isabelle line?"

"I'm afraid that I'm not only lazy, but also quite bad at recognizing faces – for understandable reasons, of course."

"Of course."

That encounter not only heightens the interest in Isabelle, who was introduced gloriously in the first book of the series (">Tortuga Gold), but also heightens the romantic mystery between her and Taz. So with my new line from the guy in the Bahamas, here's what will happen later in the book (although this is my first stab at writing it).

"Want to rent a jet ski? Go para-sailing?"

"No thanks."

"Rent a snow-mobile?"

Pete laughed and turned to Taz. "Or buy something for Isabelle?"

"That's funny. Really. Keep it up."

"I intend to. So tell me about this woman who stabbed you but also has you twisted in knots."

"No."

"Don't be like that."

(Taz will reveal a little of their past together)

 Both of those scenes sprang from good lines I heard someone say. I wrote them down and used them. It pays to be ready.

Good writing…Wes