Writer’s Life | Where do ideas come from?

‘Where do you get all your ideas?’ is the most common question I’m asked.

I laugh.

‘From God, I suppose. I used to tell people I was born with a pen in my hand.’

Ideas seem to be everywhere. Sometimes they interrupt me at awkward times, like when I’m falling asleep. I used to lie in bed waiting for sleep – and an idea for my current novel (or a new one) would drop into my mind. Adrenaline surged through me. Sleepiness was gone. I’d lie there for hours, expanding on the idea and thinking, I must remember this in the morning.

So much for a good night’s sleep.

Eventually I began sleeping with a notebook and a biro beside me.  When an idea comes, I write it down, then go to sleep.

But as for brand new novel ideas …

After breaking off a long term relationship, I was walking through the shopping mall. The crowds milled around me. Then I saw him! The man I’d been going out with. His unmistakeable dark curly hair bobbed along not far away. Would he want to talk to me? My heart galloped. The crowd parted and … it wasn’t him after all.

But the idea took root.

What if it had been him? Worse still, what if this happened when someone had died? This concept can take an imaginative writer in several directions. For me, it progressed into the prologue of Mirage, when Bronwyn sees her friend’s outstanding mass of red curls in the crowd, then remembers Miriam is actually dead. I won’t tell you any more or I’ll spoil the story for those who haven’t read it.

A main part of this same book was inspired by the traumas a friend had been through. She told me her story and was willing for me to write it, combined with the products of my imagination, into a novel. Real people often have stories that make great bases for novels, if they are willing for writers to use them.

I firmly believe it’s important to have their permission, even if you deviate from their exact story.

Amelia’s Island

My latest novel was first inspired by King Island off Wellington Point. It’s now a tiny, badly eroded island which is connected to the mainland by an ever-widening sand bar at low tide. At high tide, the sea cuts it off and it becomes an island.

Then I read a notice about the Phillips family who lived on King Island for over a year in the early 1900s. Their daughter had polio and the doctor had advised sea air and salt water to help her recover.

Ding! Flashlight!

What if someone fictitious lived there for whatever reasons and … Thus began Amelia’s Island.

The character of Amelia has been a mystery to some readers. At the beginning of the novel she is beautiful, spoilt, selfish – just not very likeable. By the end of the novel she has changed and is a protagonist with whom we can empathise – after a turbulent journey from a life of fantasy and deception to one of truth and love.

Todd (the father of her baby) is a pain. He is a drug user and is obsessive. My few years of writing the Teen Challenge newsletter gave me insight into the lives of drug addicts and my early pre-Christian years living in the arty scene in Sydney gave me a small amount of first-hand experience (back in the famed or notorious ‘60s.)

And now …

At the moment the notebooks beside my bed contain notes for my memoirs. Not my autobiography – just selected chunks. Highlights and lowlights.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for giving me ideas and for drawing my attention to ready-made stories. I’ll need all His help in selecting the right memoirs and bringing them to life on the page.

Where do you find your ideas?