So it’s been a little while since I’ve done any posts here on my website and I wanted to change that going forward this year. So I’ve decided to do a Monthly Q&A, taking questions from my lovely readers (which is hopefully you if you’re reading this!)
Questions have been taken from all of my social media platforms and my official newsletter. So if you have a burning question for me, feel free to leave one wherever and you may get featured!
There was quite a prominent theme with the first questions I got asked and it was all about ideas, so I thought it would make a nice starting point for this Q&A.
How hard / easy did you find it to get your idea onto paper / computer?
From Neesha on Instagram (@neesharees)
It depends on what kind of mood I’m in and what I’m actually planning to create. With most of my story ideas, none of them are completely fresh; they’re ideas that I’ve had from my teenage years that I’ve wanted to expand on.
A great example of this is my debut The Ascension of Melanie Winters; the original bare bones idea for Ascension stemmed from a very simple daydream I’d have during childhood – I wished that I could have telekinetic powers to get revenge on bullies. As I was introduced to more science fiction stories and different life situations, the story completely grew from that. I even attempted to write it for NaNoWriMo 2015 but had to stop because of poor mental health. And then it became my debut three years later!
Now, the story I’m planning is rather difficult in terms of creating the world where the story takes place. But sometimes inspiration can strike me in the most random of places (the strangest time – picking up dog poop on a morning walk).
Do you find it hard to come up with original ideas when there’s so much out there already?
From Shelley on Instagram (@bybusby)
YES. The amount of times I’ve come up with a brilliant idea and then find it’s already been done is annoying, frustrating and sad. As I said in the previous question, the majority of my original ideas come from many years ago trawling through my old writing notebooks. But actually coming up with something new can be really taxing. I think the trick with idea planning is that if it is something that’s been done before, I always think about if I could bring a new perspective to it or a completely new twist to the table. No idea in this day and age is completely original but knowing where to draw the line is very important and one that I practice very regularly with all my planned work.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
From Jimbob on Instagram (@jimbobs_gymblogs)
Everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. I wrote a post on here about my five favourite inspiration sources but honestly anything can inspire me. Right now, a lot of my inspiration has come from music; I’m incredibly passionate about music as my taste is far reaching and diverse and a lot of writing time has been spent listening to music. I also love to take inspiration from my own experiences, tv, film, social media, the current political climate…which I’m pretty confident covers the “everything” category.
The story that I’m working on right now has a dedicated playlist on my phone. And if I hear something that makes my imagination go absolutely bananas, it goes straight onto my phone and in the playlist. I plan to write some posts diving into each of the playlists soon.
If you have any questions you’d like to ask, feel free to leave them below. You can also head over to my contact page or slide into my DM’s on social media. Orsend a carrier pigeon, whatever your prefer.
