An Idea Or Two......

 By Helen Lacey

I love hearing from readers and really enjoy talking about writing and about the story they’ve just read. It’s a wonderful feeling when a reader becomes so involved they ask about the characters and where the idea for the book came from.

And my answer is always the same ….. Where do ideas come from? Well, everywhere.

As an example, in my latest Harlequin Special Edition release His-And-Hers Family, I got the idea from a family friend whose cousin gave her baby up for adoption when she was just fifteen. From this one conversation I started thinking about what might happen if she had a chance to reconnect with that child many years later. So, the story was born by asking a whole series of ‘what if’s’.

In another book I wrote recently, watching a television special on the ABC late one night about twin sisters who were separated as toddlers and then found one another again when they were thirty, got me asking myself the same ‘what if’ question. As I watched the show I discovered that these sisters had experienced many similar things in their life – like they married a man with the same first name and both had a operation on the same day . It wasn't long after watching this show that the idea for the book developed and was then written.

But it’s not only in writing where ideas abound. I have a friend who is an interior designer. She can look at and old piece of furniture, imagine it restored and immediately see that piece fitting into the home of a client. Me, well I just see an old piece of furnitureJ. She can merge colours together and knows exactly what lighting, what art and what floor coverings will work. And guess where she gets her ideas from . . .  everywhere. From books, from television, from other people. 

The best part is, ideas are free. They can come when we least expect them, or when we’ve been studying something long and hard. And they make us unique, because we all have different ideas that come from our different experiences and our different lives.

What about you – have you ever seen a gardening show and thought you might like to plant a veggie patch in your own yard? Have you ever witnessed a picture perfect sunset and thought you might like to paint it. Or grabbed your camera to snap a photo that begged to be taken? Do you have an new idea just begging to take hold? I'd love to hear if you're about to embark on a new adventure or embrace a new idea.