Inspiration

If you could see my "to read" pile right now you would raise your eyebrows and wish me luck. Truly. There are so many incredible books out there just begging to be read. So many different types of stories, so many characters.... where do we find the ideas from?

The book I'm working on right now, I have no idea where the inspiration came from. I was explaining the plot to my brother-in-law the other day and as he is a total sci-fi geek he was very excited to inform me my story had "very strong elements of sci-fi". No way, not true. Okay maybe a little true, but not intentionally! Honestly though, I have no idea where this particularly story idea came from. It wasn't a life event that gave me the idea, and it wasn't an image or a TV show or anything of the sort... I had one idea and it just developed from there.

In the past six months there have been a number of events that have triggered that little light bulb in my head to light up. The "this would be a great idea for a book" light bulb. Then there are the plans I'm making for the future which I can already tell would provide a great setting for a story.

So I wonder, where do you find your inspiration? Do you write books based on events of your life, or your friends lives or do you find something entirely and completely obscure and go from there?

Forming story ideas

In the last two days I've spent about six hours lying in the park. I desperately needed some sunshine, so took the opportunity to get out there and soak up some rays.

While I was lying there, I watched all the people come and go - mothers with their kids, teenagers with their friends, toddlers with their nannies and young couples on what could potentially be their first date.

It's a great place to get inspiration for future story ideas, to imagine the lives of these people, their ups and downs and what makes them tick. In fact, I probably spent about an hour creating the spider web of relationships in my head for a toddler and her nanny yesterday.

One thing I found interesting though, was that none of the stories I came up with while in the park really spoke to me in the way that my past characters have done. The stories I write seem to jump up and down in my head, demanding my attention and doing whatever possible to force me to tell the story.

The stories I'm compelled to write honestly just come to me when I'm actively thinking about ideas.

I read a lot of authors say they have an image come to them that they then build on, or they saw something in their daily life which they turned into a story. My ideas don't seem to work like that. Sure, I've had some images that have come to me, but none really speak to me in a way that I can pull a story out of it. It might give me a general idea but that's about it.

So I'm wondering, where do your ideas and inspiration come from? Are you the type of author who's ideas just appear before your eyes or do your ideas come to life when you really sit down and concentrate?