The second question I usually get asked about my writing is where do I get my ideas for
writing from? It’s a cliché but I now recommend people to begin by writing about what they know. I used to rail against this when I was younger. I wanted to write about fantasy worlds with hobbit-like creatures or love stories set in Monaco or ghost stories set in the 17th century. But they would always fizzle out because I didn’t have the time or maturity to do the required research. Once I accepted the oft-told advice and started to write about what I knew, I realised how easily it came. You have a whole bank of ideas ready to draw on right there in your own experiences. Even if that is the experience of a househusband or wife or the experience of working in an office. You can take those ordinary things and spin something extraordinary from them.
With Finding Ruby, I admit the experiences I had to draw on were more than ordinary. My inspiration came from my own round the world travels. I met someone who had found themselves alone while travelling and it got me thinking ‘how would that feel? To be left all alone and abandoned in the middle of nowhere? How would I cope?’ And Ruby’s story grew from there. I was lucky because I had 4 years worth of travel to draw on. Not everyone has been elephant-trekking in a Thai jungle and so won’t know the little details like how abrasive the elephant skin is on your skin. But that doesn’t mean you can’t draw on the ordinary things that you do know a lot about. I had to draw on my experiences of being a young working woman in order to flesh out Ruby’s life before travelling. I like to think I wasn’t quite as shallow and naïve as Ruby before I underwent my travels, but I also know for a fact that I changed irreparably from my own experiences and I wanted to convey that change convincingly in Ruby’s journey too so it was important to paint a convincing picture of her pre-travel life.
My current novel is based on a very different part of my life – the experience of being a working mum in the UK today. I’m drawing on everyday things I know and experience all the time. That’s what makes the reader feel like they are really there, in the character’s shoes.
That’s not to say you can’t write about hobbit-filled kingdoms. The elf could be based on that willowy, ethereal woman you met once while trekking in the Scottish Highlands or that hobbit could be based on your child’s classroom teacher. My husband regularly tells me I have hairy hobbit feet so maybe, just maybe, my next novel will be based on a five foot two hairy hobbit after all.