Posted on April 16, 2009 - by katy
Where do you get your ideas?
Where do I get my ideas from? Good question. The answer is all sorts of places…
People-watching
If I were at a party or waiting for a train in a busy station, I would definitely spend some time watching everyone else.
Be nosy! We are all just animals really and human behaviour is fascinating.
Growing up in the country
I would look at the fields, hedges and woodland around me, at the quiet, spooky pool hidden down a lane, at the river, and I’d wonder about those who’d been there before me – people who never made it into the history books. Just ordinary children, living long ago…
Armchair travelling
It’s another great place to get ideas. I love reading about dark, steamy jungles, ancient crumbling cities, explorers diving right down to the bottom of the sea, sailing across the world or climbing mountains…
Let your mind wander… it’s surprising where you end up!
Reading
Write the story you’d most like to read but remember to make it different to anyone else’s. Make it yours.
I am very curious and get interested in all manner of random stuff like urban freerunning, shamanism and kung-fu. These things usually feed into my writing somehow…
The inspiration behind my first novel, Bloodline
Anglo saxon brooch
I started writing Bloodline when I was at university because one day my parents found an old brooch in an antique shop. They were told it might have been made by the Vikings, or by a Victorian forger. Anyway, to my delight, they gave me the brooch. Excited, I showed it to my archaeology tutor, and a few weeks later, we ended up in the archives of British Museum. The brooch wasn’t a forgery at all – in fact, they already had several just like mine, all of which had been found in the Norfolk/Suffolk area. The brooch is about 1,000 years old, made by an Anglo-Saxon metalsmith. But who made it? Who wore it? How was the brooch lost? I couldn’t stop thinking about the brooch and its 1,000-year-long story.
The brooch sent me back through time in my imagination. This is the wonderful thing about reading and writing – you can go anywhere.
No comments yet.