Changes are a bitch. Changes are wonderful.

Last weekend my oldest kid graduated from college. My youngest just finished his first year. On May 23rd, my husband and I are moving downtown from a house in the burbs. In about three years, we’re planning on retiring from our current life (no, I’m not retirement age quite yet!)—he’ll be pursuing a business venture he’s been building over the past five years, and I’ll be writing full time. We’ll be giving up our apartment and living on our sailboat for the first six months.

I’m a nervous wreck. And I’m excited as hell.

Changes bring out the best and worst in people. It doesn’t matter if you’re change-averse or if you welcome change, either. Change brings stress and forces you, the human being, to change.

Changes and transitions inspire the best storylines.

I’ve written a number of character-driven stories. The Blue Notes Series is entirely character driven. Plots are secondary. Or, maybe a better way of putting it is that character changes become the plot in those books. Sure, there are external forces at play, but the focus of the story is on characters growing and changing.

Some changes, like mine right now, are good ones. But good or bad, change forces people to adapt and change as well. The most interesting changes from this writer’s perspective, however, are those born of adversity. Adversity is the trigger for change in many of my Blue Notes Series books. The death of a partner or spouse (Aria). A cheating partner or spouse (Blue Notes). A mugging (The Melody Thief). A criminal investigation (Dissonance).

In all these stories, the focus isn’t the triggering event. But that event is disruptive enough that it forces the characters to rethink their priorities, rethink their lives, or rethink what happiness means to them.

Fiction imitates life. Change is a constant.

The old adage really is true: the only thing constant is change. If we’re honest with ourselves, we realize our lives are made up of a string of changes and transitions. Starting grade school. Starting high school. Graduating and starting college. Beginning to work at our first real job. Having children. Relationships, marriages, loss and the accompanying grief.

People grow through change, and so do characters. So as I proceed down a road filled with changes, I try to keep in mind my own experiences. Who knows? They may end up in a novel I write at some point! –Shira

PS: If you’re curious about the Blue Notes series, they’re 35% off right now for Dreamspinner Press’s 9th Anniversary celebration!

Shira Anthony was a professional opera singer in her last incarnation, performing roles in such operas as Tosca, Pagliacci, and La Traviata, among others. She’s given up TV for evenings spent with her laptop, and she never goes anywhere without a pile of unread M/M romance on her Kindle.

Shira is married with two children and two insane dogs, and when she’s not writing, she is usually in a courtroom trying to make the world safer for children. When she’s not working, she can be found at the Carolina coast aboard Land’s Zen, a 35’ catamaran sailboat, with her favorite sexy captain at the wheel.

Shira writes what she loves, be it contemporary musicians, shifter mermen, or time-traveling vampires. Her Mermen of Ea Trilogy book, Into the Wind, was named one of the best books of 2014 by both Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words and Hearts on Fire Reviews, and was a finalist in the 2014 Goodreads M/M Romance Member’s Choice Awards. Her Blue Notes series of classical-music-themed gay romances was named one of Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Word’s “Best Series of 2012,” and the most recent book in the series, Dissonance, was named one of the best books of 2014 by Hearts on Fire Reviews.

Shira can be found on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/shira.anthony

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/4641776.Shira_Anthony

Twitter: @WriterShira

Website: www.shiraanthony.com

E-mail: shiraanthony@hotmail.com