Table for Two is a new lesfic novel inspired by a dream the author had. Here Kate Gavin tells us more about how she comes up with her ideas.

Ideas…they’re a funny and fickle thing. Some might come to me fully formed and I can’t help but sit down and write. While others might be a little vague and that leads to lots of brainstorming sessions. No matter what, I write them down in my Google Doc brilliantly titled “Story Ideas.”

My ideas often come from random places. I started writing Full of Promise for a queer studies class. The assignment was to use any medium to explore any aspect of the LGBTQ+ community. After thinking about stories that I would’ve wanted as a teenager coming to terms with their bisexuality, I started writing a short story. For my current work in progress (which is at the very, very early plotting stage), the idea came from a tweet that came across on my feed.

For my newest release, Table for Two, the idea came from a dream. It didn’t have a lot of detail, but all I remembered when I woke up was that there were two women who clearly didn’t like each other and needed to share a table at a busy restaurant. Enter my favorite brainstorming partner—my wife, Andy.

On most mornings…okay only some mornings because when she wakes up for work, I’m usually a zombie. On some mornings, we often wake up and check in with each other, asking each other if we slept well. Then we ask about dreams.

My wife can have many dreams throughout the night and they’re often pretty vivid. I, on the other hand, have dreams every so often and usually don’t remember much about them. But one morning, I told her, “I had this dream where two women were forced to share a table at a busy restaurant and they absolutely hated each other.” Then the brainstorming began in force. What if they eventually didn’t hate each other and fell in love? How could I get them together again to develop some sort of relationship? How could I make it that readers wouldn’t hate either character?

As soon as I got out of bed, I immediately opened up the Google Doc and wrote out everything we talked about. Over the next several days and weeks, I continued adding to the idea, including some basic scenes I already had brewing in my mind, until I sat down at my computer and began the process of creating character profiles and outlining.

Once I started writing the actual meat of the story, the words flowed much more easily than I anticipated. Sure, I might have had a few weeks (or maybe even a month or two) where I didn’t get as much writing done as I would’ve liked, but I fell in love with these two characters and had a strong drive to write their story. I hope readers will fall in love with Reagan and Jill as much as I did.

Table for Two is a contemporary romance novel where two women meet by chance and they don’t hit it off in the least. But through working together, they find out that first impressions don’t have to last as long you learn how to be vulnerable with each other.

Now as I sit down to work on my next book, I just wonder…what will my brain think of next?