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I spent several days in southwestern Minnesota last week as I scouted locations for my seventh book. I'll be starting in on the actual writing this week and hope to finish the draft by the end of the year.

Readers of my books will notice that I like to create a "you are there" feel to my settings. I want you to read each scene as if you've been dropped in the middle of it, so that you can see, hear, feel, taste, smell, and touch what's going on around you. The best way I can do that is to identify actual locations for each chapter the way a movie director would -- and then record my impressions so that I can capture it on the page.

So you would have seen me patrolling the back roads last week with my camera and voice recorder. Abandoned main streets, dilapidated buildings, river dams, deserted parks...well, you can imagine what I can conjure with some of those settings to inspire me!

But there's also an interesting phenomenon that takes place as I visit the locales for a new book. At some point, the characters start to come to life there. I can feel them and hear them in these places. They start materializing like ghosts and slowly become more and more real. I haven't written the chapters yet -- but it's as if the action and emotions are playing out before me. That's when I know I'm ready to begin.

Now I'm back home...time to start writing!