In March of 2014, I went on a Veronica Mars binge—watching every episode from start to finish, and then I rented the movie, which was released that month. I had never watched Veronica Mars before discovering it on Amazon Prime. It sucked me into the Mars vortex; I couldn’t stop watching.

At the time, I was between manuscripts. I had just committed to writing Sundered Hearts—a book in my Unlocked Hearts Series written under my Anna J. McIntyre pen name. At the time, the idea for Haunting Danielle was rattling around in the back of my head.

Some might see going on a TV binge  a waste of time. But in retrospect, I think it was an excellent writing exercise. After I finished watching, I asked myself, what about the show sucked me in? I wanted to do that with readers. I wanted to give them a series they wanted to keep reading—something they couldn’t put down.

I loved the characters of Veronica Mars—three dimensional with flaws—characters I started out hating and ended up loving.

I’m not saying I’ve managed to pull off what the writers of Veronica Mars accomplished—but they did inspire me when writing my Haunting Danielle Series. I’ve taken their lessons to heart.

So the next time you refuse to change out of your jammies and curl up by the TV or computer monitor to gorge on some series, don’t let anyone tell you you’re wasting your time. You never know what you might be learning.