People often ask me where my ideas come from.
For years I didn’t know how to answer this question, so I’ve always responded with, ‘I don’t know. They just come.”
Sometimes, such as the scene where James Thomas removes a man’s face with a scalpel, or the opening scene of Lana which has seven rotting bodies suspended in the trees, it’s probably best I don’t examine this question too closely.
But jokes aside, lately I’ve been noticing the little triggers that proceed my ideas.
For example, this morning I was walking Izzy (one of my dogs) and I decided to take a different route. Much to my delight, I stumbled upon a cemetery.
Now, I love cemeteries. I know most people probably think that’s morbid—and they’re likely right—but I’m always fascinated by the tombstones. I read them and wonder what that person’s life was like…almost creating characters in my mind for the people buried six feet under.
But today it wasn’t the tombstones that captured my attention. It was the rows of houses that faced the cemetery across the road. I had a thought as I looked at a car parked in one driveway:
‘That is literally looking at death in the rear-view mirror.’
Next thought: I wonder if the price of real estate that faces a cemetery is reduced because of it, or if there are people like me that might even pay more…Lol.
Next thought: The heroine in my next novel (book four of the Cold Case Murder Mystery series) should ‘have’ to live in a house across from a cemetery so that I could write a lot of creepy scenes.
So, this is the strange way my mind works!
Ideas come from anywhere and everywhere but most of the time they come from ordinary things I observe while doing something very ordinary like walking my dog.
Happy Friday my friends,
B.
P.S. If you want to read that opening scene in Lana with the rotting bodies swaying in the breeze, you can download the first seven chapters for FREE here.
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