I finished the first book in a new paranormal erotica series today, Gods Awakened. It made me think about the things that inspire me to write.

In this case, it starts way back when I toured the Field Museum in Chicago. I was in the walk-through tomb in a rare solitary moment. It was very quiet, and I was looking at a golden mask. Suddenly I wondered: what if the god Anubis came to life?

I was thinking about this over the past week, because I’d always wanted to write historical erotica… but I can never resist that touch of the paranormal. I loved the idea of gods awakening and walking the Earth. Then I remembered a documentary on Egypt I saw years ago, which talked about the fact that there was so much gold mined and used in ancient Egypt that almost every piece of gold jewelry you wear today probably has a touch of ancient Egypt in it… and the idea took flight. What if you could follow a piece of gold throughout history, seeing the lives it touched? In fact, what if touching that gold under certain circumstances could bring a god to life?

Although I work out these details as I start to write, the real inspiration for my paranormal erotica and paranormal romance is in a captured moment. For Dark Initiation, it was that question: Asmodeus asks Rachel if she agrees to be bound to him. I could see it clearly in my head–his eyes, her quick breaths as she knelt on her own kitchen floor. With Taken by Anubis, it was the moment when the jackal-headed Anubis walks into the tomb and the priestess Sa-Khonsu first realizes that she looking upon a living god.

These moments inspire me. What inspires you?