Self-Seeding Inspiration

Nemesias

My garden's a bit confused. It's winter here in Australia, but my garden is flowering like it's spring. Not that I'm complaining! Even better, many of the flowers are self-seeded. Maybe because I'm a bit of a lazy gardener and so let a few plants go to seed each year, I'm often surprised by what springs up by itself a few months later. I've even had lettuce self-seed!

And that made me think of inspiration and writing. Sometimes people ask where the inspiration for a story comes from, and I'm generally stuck for an answer. Looking at my garden I finally understood. Ideas self-seed!

Nasturtiums

The more you read and write, the more the ideas flow. I've given up trying to trace back the specific inspiration for stories. They arise from 1,001 influences.

But I think characters gain depth from an author's interest in people. I read psychology blogs (like the BPS Research Digest blog). I'm fascinated by how people respond differently to trauma -- how the ability to heal is in all of us.

Stories are like gardens. They grow any which way, but in the end they all (for me) follow the sun; i.e. they all flower with love, hope and happiness.

My next release is Hollywood Demon, out August 27, and at the special launch price of 99c if you want to pre-order it.

Feel the Earth move! Clancy Ramirez, failed geo-mage, is back in Los Angeles and driving straight into trouble. There’s a demon on the prowl, and its target is her teenage crush. Mark Yarren is even more gorgeous at thirty, marked by tragedy and on a quest for justice, and although this Hollywood billionaire might be out of her league, Clancy can’t resist a hero in distress. Can you?