How do writers know what to write about? Where do they get their ideas?

Not by some winged inspiration fairy whispering in their ears, that’s for sure. Wish it was. In my head she looks a bit like me… only her pixie-cut hair ALWAYS behaves itself and she’s got a perfect cheeky grin.

Writers know what to write about by writing it. There’s often a bit of daydreaming, sure – the three-day Take Five Writing Anti-Challenge that’s available with my writing partner-in-crime is where you can give that a go. But the real story? The details? The order of things and the why and the how? That comes about by starting to write. It grows as you write it. Then you get other ideas – they multiply like alien spawn. (Unpleasant simile, maybe… but you get my point.)

I am doing that myself. I’ve been sitting on the ideas for my second novel for a while. (First one an historical thriller set in the Tudor era called The Heretic’s Servant… go look it up!) Now I’ve properly got going with it, writing a bit every day, and taking that action is making the story come to life. Before, I was trying to get my little inspiration fairy to tell me what the story was going to be like and making a promise that when I knew what was supposed to happen, I’d write it down.

Big mistake. And I knew it was wrong. But I was letting my fear of writing the ‘wrong’ thing stop me from writing at all. No more.

Fear of writing? No more!

I’ve got my motivation, my simple rules (write 200 words a day, five days a week), my tools (Free progress tracker from Book Forge, my plan and reminders of what works for me) and my support network. If you don’t know what to write about, do one simple thing… write. Even if it’s about what happened when you went to the supermarket. It doesn’t matter. Just. Write. You can absolutely do this on your own – writing is one of the lowest cost activities there is. And if you want support, motivation, encouragement, community, it is here, waiting for you.