Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Finding Story Ideas

"Where do you find your ideas?"

EVERYWHERE!

Sometimes ideas come from:
  • something I hear on the news,
  • an article about a fantastical discovery, a new theory, or something strange,
  • a snippet of an overheard conversation
  • a place I happen to visit,
  • a road sign,
  • the name of a place,
  • the characters in my books,
  • my dreams and nightmares,
  • songs,
  • the weather,
  • a scent,
  • or some crazy combination of things.
The past few weeks, I've watched several Christmas movies. The whole "letter to Santa thing" got me to thinking. "What if..."
I now have an idea, actually a couple of pages of notes, for a Christmas story. It needs to be outlined and fleshed out, but the idea is on paper. Unfortunately, it won't be ready for this Christmas, but I hope to have it ready for Christmas 2015.

A couple of weeks ago, we were on a drive. I jotted down several names of dry creeks and roads that made the wheels in my head turning with a possible series idea. I'm not sure where or when I will actually use the names, but they are safe in my ideas book, along with my growing list of possible character names.

I always have a notepad and pens with me, because I never know when an idea or inspiration is going to hit me.