WRITING STORIES TORN FROM THE HEADLINES

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.”  William Faulkner

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People often ask me (and other writers) "Where do you get your ideas?"   I'm always open to possibilities--from life as I see it going on around me, (I do a lot of eavesdropping), from stories I've heard as a child, from the classics, from the Bible, and from the daily news.

The idea for CRIMSON ICE came a very common news story about the disappearance of a lovely young woman on her way to work. The novel grew out of my speculation about the possibilities.

How do I get ideas? I read the headlines! I read the obituaries. I read the editorial pages. I wonder and speculate: Who are these people? What motives propelled them?  Then I invent. I imagine. I embroider.

A novel I'm working on now is tentatively called A Bridge to the Moon. It was suggested by a terrible crime in which an obsessed stalker killed a whole family and made off with a young girl. I wondered how the tragedy would affect the only survivor. I wondered if she would blame herself for what happened to her family. I didn't write about the actual story but imagined a similar story and invented characters to live it out.

I'm still working on it. I'm still deciding how it all will end. WRITE ON!