A lot of times people ask writers: ‘Where do your ideas come from?’ to which the usual reply is, ‘Everywhere.’ While this is basically true. While it seems like an idea pops out fully formed, it is likely that you’re only hearing about it once a lot of ideas from all over the place will finally come together in that one lightning bolt moment.

I can get little ideas from tv shows or movies I watch, other books I read, from music I listen to, or even just things I see or hear during the course of my day. It’s taking all those little sparks and organizing them until you hit that one piece that brings it all together …sort of like the straw that broke the camel’s back, only it’s a good thing.

For the Storyteller, that moment was while I was reading through lesser known fairy tales on the Internet and I read one called The Little Wildrose. When I read that the main character was carried off and then raised by eagles, that’s when the lightning struck my brain. I had wanted to write a story with fairy tales where the characters are aware that the fairy tales are a thing every since I read Mercedes Lacky’s The Fairy Godmother. It wasn’t until this point that I finally had the idea of where to start.

And even with that idea, I had a false start where Wildrose was the main character and was going into the tales alone. This is where I got the idea for playing with genders though, as I made Wildrose male and had him interacting with a female Bluebeard. A few months later I wrote 90k words in October and November with Tabitha as the main character and the rest is now history.

I know it is rather popular for writers to write to music, but I never listen to music when I am writing. Like I said yesterday, when I am writing new prose, I need to have it quiet with no outside stimuli. I tend to not listen to music when I revise either.

But that doesn’t mean music isn’t super important to my writing process. I have songs that I associate with my different stories and whenever I hear them, in the car or while I’m at work, that gets my brain going on that particular story. Sometimes that means I’ll have notes that I need to jot down real quick. Other times it means it just helps me to think through the story.

Songs that I associate with The Storyteller series:
Demons by Imagine Dragons
Payphone by Maroon Five
A Thousand Years by Christina Perri

Writing for me happens almost exclusively on electronic devices now. I used to have a little notebook in my back pocket, but transcribing was a beast, especially if I was writing out an entire scene. That was before I got my new phone and the Scrivener app which I simply love. It comes in such handy when I’m at work because I can quickly jot down ideas/scenes and then just transfer it over when I get home. But where I write depends on what I am doing at the time.

New prose is done either on my phone (when I’m out of the house) or my netbook, which I take into the basement. I tend to get distracted very easily when I’m writing new prose, so I have to remove myself from the Internet and my laptop where there are tons of great distractions. I also need it to be quiet with as little outside stimuli as possible. This is why I go to the basement, just to completely avoid my husband who works from home, and the cats, who like to demand attention.

Revising takes place on my laptop, which is hooked up to a large monitor so my screen is larger and I can see more words at once. I am a lot less likely to get distracted when revising. Plus, with my style of writing there is a ton of moving files and words around so a mouse is necessary. I have been known to revise pretty effectively even in busy, public places. I guess once the words are down, they stay in my head better.