From Tiny Acorns

Ok, so I might not have beaten my blog views record over the last seven days (far from it), but all in all on the writing front it hasn't been a bad week.

The second novel is flying along and I've just been announced on Twitter as one of Avon Books UK Christmas competition winners - yay! A copy of Trisha Ashley's Wish Upon a Star is fighting its way to Norfolk through the Christmas post as I type.

On top of that I have also, (somehow), managed to find the time to plan and write a new short story for the Shortbread Christmas competition which closes on the 20th of December. The writing prompt comprises of a photograph of a Christmas bauble with a woman reflected in it and the title The Lady in the Bauble.

As I have sat writing my entry over the last few evenings I've been mulling over the often asked question all writers find themselves subjected to -

'Where do you get your ideas from?'

I haven't yet met anyone who can clearly or concisely answer that question. With regard to the competition there are guidelines and rules to follow but nonetheless the 'dawning and development process' (as I like to call it), is still similar to having no prompt at all.

With a short story I find that the entire story - characters, plot and all - just seem to land, arrive, descend, pop, call it what you will, but they are suddenly 'present' as if they have been patiently waiting in the wings for their time to shine.

Novels of course take more thought, consideration and deliberation. Sometimes the main character appears first, sometimes the idea for a plot, however, when the seed of an idea has been sown it is impossible to shake off. It almost seems to have a life of its own from the very beginning and if you feed it the right things (time to develop, a notebook full of thoughts and a scrapbook full of torn images) then you will find in no time at all that the mightiest stories can grow!