Whenever I’m asked where I get my ideas, I say I believe we’re all born storytellers. If you watch infants babble to themselves, and toddlers make up conversations with their stuffed animals, then older children acting out imaginary stories by themselves, doing the dialogue for all the characters, you can see the wealth of creativity humans are born with.

Then, about when children start going to school, they learn to color inside the lines. They’re told that the sky is blue, the grass is green, and no, you can’t have a separate desk for your imaginary best friend. Little by little that storytelling ability drifts away. But fortunately, enough of a ghost of it remains that we all still need stories to feel connected to that child we once were, which is where writers come in. We’re those kids who’d daydream while gazing out the window (while keeping one ear open in case the teacher called on us!) who managed, somehow, to never entirely grow up. Which is how we Peter Pans can continue to tell our stories.

Then, to dispell any idea of us being immature and unable to take responsibility, I always point out that of course we became adults enough to conduct our careers, pay our bills, take care of children, obey laws, (well, except for those ones about speeding, which I’ll always contend are merely guidelines, sort of like the Pirate’s Code) and all the other grown up things life requires of us.

So, for me, it’s not so much where I get ideas, but how to choose which stories to tell. Every so often, my muses will gift me with the beginning of a story, leaving me to write the book so I’ll find out what happens. This was the case with Cajun Heat, the novella I wrote for BAYOU BAD BOYS, which is coming out from Brava books the last week of November. Just in time for Christmas gift shopping! Did I mention romance novels make great stocking stuffers? (This book was written months before Katrina caused such devastation and I, along with fellow authors Nancy Warren and E.C. Sheedy, wish to dedicate it to all those affected by the hurricane and to the great and much beloved city of New Orleans.)

Louisiana men? Honey, talk about the Big Easy. . .

If anyone had told him, back in his hormone-driven teenage days, that a guy could get paid sinfully big bucks for making love to the world’s sexiest women, Gabriel Broussard would’ve hightailed it out of South Louisiana’s bayou country a helluva lot sooner.

Which explained the panties. Sort of.

Well, needless to say, that got me wondering about who Gabriel Broussard was. And what situation he’d gotten himself into. The first thing that popped into my head was that he was a pirate.

But wait! That couldn’t be right! Because BAYOU BAD BOYS is a contemporary! And I already knew, thanks to my uncharacteristically helpful muses (who are, by the way, usually so cranky, they seem to live in a constant state of PMS) that Gabriel’s a movie star. Ah, but what if he’s an actor who’s made a movie about pirates?

And that’s how Cajun Heat was born.

Having grown up in ranching country, we kids always played sheriff and robbers. (The country version of cops and robbers.) But then, one fateful night, when I was eight years old, my elderly babysitter dozed off while watching the late night movie on television. Since she always fell asleep by ten p.m., I’d discovered that if I sneaked out of bed very quietly, I could watch the movie without her catching me, then race back to bed as soon as I heard my parents’ car pull into the driveway.

That night she was watching a very old, very grainy black and white movie. The fact that the Cascade Mountains blocked most of the TV signal, turning the screen into a field of snow didn’t help either. But none of that mattered as sat on the floor, enthralled, watching Errol Flynn’s noble Captain Blood duel with Basil Rathbone.

From that moment on, whenever it was my turn to choose what we kids played, we played pirate, never mind that we were a day’s drive from any ocean. To me, there’s just something dashingly romantic about a swashbuckling pirate hero. Okay, I know in real life they were violent, uncouth, probably didn’t have any teeth, smelled bad, and were thieves and murderers. But if I wanted reality, I’d go to the library and check out a stack of reference books.

What I’m in love with is the fantasy of the pirate life, the image of the pirate hero standing on the deck of his ship, the full sleeves of his white shirt (open to reveal his manly chest, of course!) billowing in the sea breeze, his hands resolutely on his hips, his eyes looking out onto the far distant horizon, searching for ships to seize and oh-so-willing women to sweep off their feet (literally) and ravish.

The image of the pirate from movies and romance novels has traditionally been that of a loner. Oh, our hero is undeniably part of a band of brigands, but he’s the Alpha of the group, the firm, bold leader crew members are willing to trust their lives to. He’s brave, fit, intelligent enough to sail the seas without the aid of a GPS and other modern navigational equipment. He’s just, a fair man who sets democratic rules that all aboard his ship, including himself, are required to follow. (There’s that pirate’s code again.)

Although I’ve always written contemporary romances, I’ve occasionally managed to slip pirates into my stories.

In PRIVATE PASSIONS, a 1995 Harlequin Temptation, my heroine wrote erotic romance novels and one of her fantasies – which made it into my book — was of being captured and well-ravished by a pirate.

And, Somersett, South Carolina, a fictional town situated between Charleston, S.C. and Savannah, Georgia, where I set my last two romantic suspense novels, OUT OF THE STORM and BLAZE, was founded on a land grant to a buccaneer whose pirating had raised a lot of money for the British Crown.

But when I conceived the idea to write a Bayou Bad Boy novella, I envisioned my hero down the Louisiana town where I’d placed my Callahan Brothers trilogy.

So, with the bayou as a background, what better movie for Gabe to have starred in than one about the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte, who, as Lord Byron said in the poem he wrote about him, “left a corsair’s name to other times, linked one virtue to a thousand crimes?” Known as the “Gentleman Pirate of New Orleans,” and the “Terror of the Gulf,” Lafitte was a French-born privateer and smuggler who settled in the bayou and preyed on Spanish Ships in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1814, the British tried to buy his aid in attacking the city, but instead he passed on their plans to the Americans and helped Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans, earning him another title of “The Hero of New Orleans,” after which he returned to his pirate life.

In Pirates of the Carribean — a movie I love so much that not only do I have the DVD, I also bought a version in UMB, so I can watch it on my PlayStation portable on planes — even with that fey eyeliner, Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow possesses all the characteristics of a pirate hero. He’s a bohemian pirate, cool and romantic, free and lonely. At a time when modern life was giving its citizens’ security and wealth in exchange for personal liberty, Captain Jack Sparrow has chosen to escape civilization and embrace freedom. And in his relentless quest to get his ship — The Black Pearl — back, he’s very much a rebel with a cause.

My “pirate” hero, Gabriel Broussard, is on a quest, as well. He’s returned to Blue Bayou, Louisiana, to escape a hoard of tabloid reporters, but things heat up the minute he reunites with Emma Quinlan. With her lush body and hearty appetite, she’s no Hollywood matchstick, and oh, chere, does he like that! Emma just has to stop thinking about her former Cajun crush, so, on the advice of her best friend, she makes a list of all the things she wishes Gabriel would do to her and buries it in a graveyard at midnight.

After following her to the cemetery, Gabe digs it up. Then vows to fulfill every blissful one of Emma’s sexy fantasies!

If you’d like to read the first chapter of BAYOU BAD BOYS, just click on the cemetery picture above, or from the link on my homepage at http://www.joannross.com

As a special treat for fellow pirate fans, I’ve searched out the plotline for Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Dead Man’s Chest:

Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann engage in another rip roaring sea adventure when Jack’s life is put in danger by supernatural warriors, led by the legendary Davey Jones. Jack finds out that he owes a blood debt to the legendary Jones, Captain of the ghostly Flying Dutchman. With time running out (now there’s a plot device we’ve never seen before, LOL) Jack must find a way out of his debt or else be doomed to eternal damnation and servitude in the afterlife. And as if this weren’t enough, the Captain’s problems manage to wreck the wedding plans of Will and Elizabeth, who are forced to join Jack on yet another misadventure.

So, let’s talk. On December 5th, the official publication date of BAYOU BAD BOYS, I’ll draw a name from the list of people who respond to the following two questions. The winner will receive a trade paperback edition of THE CALLAHANS (all three Callahan brothers books – Blue Bayou, River Road, and Magnolia Moon — in one volume), an autographed BAYOU BAD BOYS cover flat, and an IMPULSE (Pocket Books, June 006) Hershey bar. Three runner-ups will receive autographed cover flats and chocolate bars.