New Year; New Stories

Time to start a new year with a wish for all my readers that you have a great year to look forward to. From where I sit it is looking exciting. Harry Heron; Into the Unknown will be turned into an audio book later this year, and the next in the Harry Heron series, Harry Heron: Awakening Threat, will be published. It is going to be a busy year, and an exciting one. There's plenty to do, and lots more writing to be done an, as Sir Terry Pratchett once remarked, writing is the most fun you can have on your own.

I've been asked by readers where I get my ideas from, what is the inspiration? The answer isn't as easy as you might think. The ideas and the inspiration often come from different sources. I might read something in one of the science journals I enjoy, or something in a newspaper sets off a train of thought. Sometimes even a new insight inspired by an old children's story. Characters are often inspired by people I have known, or encountered along life's journey. No one is ever simple, no one is ever two dimensional, we are all extremely complex, a mix of all we have done, seen, encountered and had done to us. Often in creating a character for a story you gain a sudden insight into why someone you knew did what they did and behaved as they did.

Every book begins with an outline and some research (yes, even science fiction), and every bit of research turns up some new facet about people or events. That's what I find fascinating, and, if I'm not careful, can get drawn off into something that isn't going to help whatever I'm working on. Often I find a story simply will not work the way I envisaged at the outset, either because some character in it refuses to develop as I intended, or because it simply wants to go in a different direction. It can be frustrating, but it is also fun.

So, my friends, here's to a bright and productive 2019!

 

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