All authors get that question asked of them – you know – the one that goes like this: “Where do you get your ideas from?”
Ideas for books for me come from what is going on around me, what I see, read, hear, feel, etc. Things happen and suddenly my mind goes into author mode.
For example, my neighbour left her Christmas-themed door mat outside in the hallway until the month of March. My brain went into story mode. Had she just forgotten? Had she gone somewhere and didn’t come home? And why? Was she hurt, abducted, killed? Or had she drowned in her own bathtub and her corpse was floating in cold water?
You can see where this is taking me. My neighbour is fine by the way. Thanks for asking. She just left the mat there to wipe her boots on.
Having been in hospital this past winter in isolation, the long, lonely days had me coming up with all kinds of hospital-related mystery scenarios. I may write some of them in the future. A murderer loose in the ER. A corpse that disappears on its way to the morgue. You can see where I’m going and why I had problems sleeping at the hospital. So happy when I got home.
It’s a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open and then mixing those experiences with a good dose of runaway imagination and – well there’s a story in that. Yes, we do at times run out of ideas and wonder what to write next. If that happens, I spend time people watching at the mall in my neighborhood and let my mind wander. Is there a reason that car has been sitting in the parking lot and no one seems to know who it belongs to?? Hmm?
Stories are all around us. Go out and find some – you’ll be surprised.
