A new idea.
People often ask me where I get my ideas from and I invariably say ‘Life’ which is frustratingly vague. It’s true though. Ideas come from living. Some of them are terrible. Many of them are the wrong genre for me to write (which is a shame - one one day I am going to write that slasher-horror book!)
This week, I had the idea for what I hope will become Imogen Clark novel 13. (Should I have a book 13? Maybe I should skip that one, like the rows of seats on an aeroplane and just call it number 14 so as not to tempt any fates that might be lurking around?)
The idea in question has come from something that happened to me over twenty years ago and has bothered me ever since. Irritatingly, I’m not going to tell you what it is - you’ll have to wait - but what I’ve found interesting about exploring it is how it suddenly feels relevant. How come this thought which has been with me for two decades has suddenly morphed into the basis of a novel out of the blue? The facts haven’t changed at all over the years and I’ve been coming up with ideas for novels for at least ten, and yet it’s only now that this story feels ripe for the picking.
Time will tell whether it makes it onto the page. I’m not a plotter so I have to be sure that the characters and themes are strong enough to carry a whole book before I start and I also need my editor to agree that it has legs.
But now feels like this story’s time. Watch this space.
Intriguing!