ideas, ideas, ideas ...

People I meet or know ask me where I get my ideas for writing from.

Denise Picton - author of the fabulous The Family String, said at her book launch, that ideas can stick to her like Velcro.

Fiona McIntosh, and many other authors encourage reading good books and watching excellent television drama.

All of these ideas work for me. Watching and listening to people in cafes, doctors’ surgeries or when travelling can have me burrowing for a note- book, or thumbing ideas into my phone. Sometimes it’s hard to follow a telly drama’s plot because I’m lost in a beautiful line of dialogue or trying to find answers to my questions.

And books … dipping into novels these days often seems like reading textbooks. Not so with Sulari Gentill’s latest - The Woman in the Library. The twists and turns and a murder mystery inside a writer’s brain had me appreciating the unexpected and enjoying the story. A real page turner.

That’s what we want as writers. Get the reader to question everything and keep turning those pages.