I am a hopeless romantic, a shamelessly hopeless romantic.

My crazy idea to write novels began years ago.

I don't know what you do to fall asleep. Maybe you count sheep. Maybe you count the ticks and tocks of your analog clock. Or, worse still, maybe you think of everything you have to do tomorrow, which is probably why you can't fall asleep.

Me? I found myself adding scenes to TV shows.

Do you ever find yourself watching a show and think, "Hey, that's not what I would have done." Or better still, you are watching a show and think, "I would have liked to see the scene where so-and-so does this or that." Perhaps that just me.

But then I got to thinking, which is always a dangerous pastime.

My thoughts went something like:

Why don't you make up your own characters?

Oh, you could never do that.

Why not?

What makes you think that you could create anything better than roughly outlined cardboard people?

Well, I have been an avid TV watcher most of my life. I know what I like and don't like. Does that count for something?

Hmm. I suppose.

What if you borrowed a few characters, just to see how it plays out?

Now that's an idea.

You have always had a thing for Robin Hood. You could write about him.

The rest is history. And yes, I do often sound like Sméagol.

(Interestingly, while Robin and Marian were traipsing through my head, other characters, folks I had no inkling of, slowly started coming out of the woodwork. Now, they are having a shindig in my noggin while patiently waiting for me to breathe them into life on the page.)