Trish Wylie | Do you get your ideas from real life?

Authors are constantly asked where they get their ideas from. It’s probably the
most commonly asked question. And here in the UK and Ireland Mills & Boon
(Harlequin’s UK division) is celebrating it’s Centenary, so we’re seeing a lot
more press coverage - hence I’ve been asked this question about a half dozen
times in the last week alone.

One of the next things they asked was ‘Do you get your ideas from real life?’
to which I consistently answered with a burst of laughter and ‘I WISH!’

But that’s probably not the real answer. Because the initial spark of
inspiration *does* come from real life and the things we see and hear around us
every day; a song, a movie we hated the end of, the sight of two people talking
in a street café, a photograph that captures a moment we want to know more
about. And then a chain reaction begins. The who, what, when, where and why
starts to find answers inside our heads – the part of our brain in charge of
creativity rubbing its hands with glee and setting to work with gusto! (We
hope…)