Don’t want to turn the blog into a quote-fest, but this is relevant to something new I just started working on:

“We do have one thing going for us. Miss Watkins was a nobody. She was a drifter. No family, no close friends. She said she had hitch-hiked East from Idaho. So she won’t be missed”.

That’s Mayor Vaughan’s closing remark on the one off freak shark attack to Chief Brody in Jaws by Peter Benchley. I haven’t read the book since I was a kid and @squeezeomatic was kind enough to send me a neat edition to reread. The book lasted 35 years with no idiot scribbling in it and then I come along with my pen.

I’ve started getting asked the ideas question recently. Where do they come from, or more precisely where do I get them from. The easy answer is the same place as everyone else.

I read a lot and that helps. And if opportunity knocks then ideas have me on speed dial. The above quote jumped out of me in relation to something very far removed from sharks and that something came to me almost fully fleshed out when a quick look online for a character name wound up three hours later with the sun coming up and an iPad full of notes.

I was asked about naming things last week too. Nipped into the BBC to do that so if the few words of mine make it into something linkable I’ll drop the URL here.