So, where do you get the ideas?

May, 2025

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

​Our uniqueness makes our stories fascinating and of interest to others, while our commonality is what unites us and reassures us that we are not so different after all.

Writers, me included, are frequently asked at conventions and workshops: ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ Although the question in itself is mere curiosity, it carries a kind of reverence or belief that writers experience and imagine a different world than mere mortals, but that’s not strictly true.
 
Most of us live seemingly ordinary lives and while we might hope to be involved in something grand or inspiring, something that makes us famous and rich, most of us never have that happen. And yet, every aspect of our seemingly ordinary lives is potentially extraordinary and the stuff of which stories are made. We think we are born, grow up in our families and go on with our lives in ordinary ways. But reflect on that. Even before you were born, there were people who shaped how and where you were born, even why you were born, and that makes you both familiar to readers and potentially unique. Your parents might be farmers struggling to eke a living out of a barren land, people who escaped a troubled land and tyranny to establish a new life elsewhere, creators of extraordinary things that brought wealth into being, humble people committed to a quiet and uneventful life, survivors of a great catastrophe. And all of the above might not be true of your parents, but of your grandparents or even earlier ancestors, and all that has a bearing on who you might be when you enter the world.
 
And then there is you. Maybe you were born with a challenge. Maybe you were exceptionally bright at school, or the kid who was bullied, or a sports star, or all of those. Maybe you had friends who did amazing things, who took risks, or disobeyed the rules. No one is singularly perfectly normal and uninteresting. But even if you find nothing in yourself you believe worthy of writing about, you will now and meet and observe many other people who might provide that spark of inspiration.
 
Like all creative people, writers live, listen, observe, read, view and think. When I’m asked, ‘Where do I get my ideas for writing?” I answer, “From everywhere, everything and everyone.” And that’s the truth.
 
I observe people – family, friends, colleagues, strangers, even myself. I listen to their voices and their expressions. I analyse their features, their dress style, their mannerisms, how they walk and laugh, what they eat and how they eat. I note what excites them, what makes them annoyed or angry, what saddens them, what they wish they had and what they are grateful for having, and how they express and react to emotions and events. I look for quirks, obsessions, behaviours that seem specific to individuals.
 
I soak in the colours and sounds and smells and sensations of places, the rich complexity and uncomplicated simplicity of textures and structures and light and atmosphere and composition and position. I look at the subtle integration of architecturally beautiful buildings and the stark vulgarity of aggressive designs. Whether I am walking along a gentle curved sandstone cobbled alley in Medina, shadows crouching against the cream and brown huddled buildings to avoid the sharp blue glare of summer, or pushing through the morass of shoppers beneath criss-crossing strings of multicoloured bulbs in a Mumbai market, my senses wrapped in the jarring fragrances of spices and human sweat and the plaintive cries of stall hawkers, or running on a ragged concrete path, bordered by green lawn beside the brown and silted waters of the River Torrens, my sneakers padding out a painful rhythm in sync with my frantic breath, while brown and black ducks quack annoyance at my passing, I am aware and taking note of what surrounds me and in what I am immersed, because at some point, for a story or poem or article, these things will become writing.
 
So, specific examples of where ideas germinate?

The original Andrakis fantasy series arose from a variety of sources, including a vast number of fantasy texts I read over a twenty-year period and more than two hundred D&D games I designed and DM’d. For the record, Andra’s physical training reflects my direct experiences training as a semi-elite basketball, volleyball and amateur football player and coach. The fighting sequences are a composite result of learning how to box and a small martial arts course and being lucky enough to try on and fight in mock armour with a medieval re-creation group. A Ahmud Ki’s quest for knowledge mirrors my personal quest for knowledge. The Andrakian world was the basis for the D&D games I created and there are D&D scenarios from our games worked into the series’ events.

The young adult novel Joy Ride was sparked in the early 1990s when Adelaide was hit with a spate of teenagers stealing cars that culminated one night in a news item where two lads stole an STA bus and drove it up the freeway. This coincided with me working briefly as a student counsellor at Aberfoyle Park High and my wider experience as a teacher working with teenagers and their family issues. I wanted to give voice to disaffected teenage lads. I listened to and recorded the ‘language’ of 1990s southern Adeliade teenagers and used it.

The Ashuak Chronicles drew inspiration from multiple sources: Roman and modern colonial history, the characters of Gandhi and Christ as peacemakers in violent times, and a variety of historical events like the siege of Masada as an example. The prejudices and cruelty meted out to blacks and women, even now in our so-called civilised world, form crucial elements of the tale. The Ashuak Chronicles also became the genesis for where the source of magic existed in my fantasy worlds and introduced, or more accurately embellished, the Genesis Stones and the role of the amber gems from off-world as the means to magical power.

A current speculative fiction and unpublished novel, All We Have, arose, ironically pre-COVID, from my interest in researching how viruses mutate and adapt and how difficult it is for scientists and doctors to control viral outbreaks, and also from my interest and concern in the ris of extremist religious-driven groups and right-wing ideologist around the globe. The novel reflects the collision of both threats to humanity and the resultant apocalypse that is waiting to happen. Okay, I also threw in a zombie component based on thinking how viruses might one day learn how to manipulate their hosts. And then COVID hit and I had more real-life material to draw upon for the story.

And, finally, Girlie has obvious direct sources from my mother’s early life and world and local history unfolding around her and her family.

Ideas for writing are everywhere, every day. Like most writers, I observe, I listen, I think about implications and possibilities, and I probably have amassed more ideas and concepts for writing than I will ever have time to complete.

​Sylvia Plath was right. Life supplies the ideas for everyone. Applying the ideas in writing requires taking the risk to write.