Something people who write are often asked is: 'Where do your ideas come from?' I believe it's the most asked and most hated question that published authors hear.
I have a very simple answer. A fluffy green bunny.
Her name is Bronwen and she's a plot bunny. She doesn't look precisely like the one in the picture above, but it is a close likeness. I don't really know why she's green, she just always has been.
To be honest Bronwen isn't really my plot bunny. I share custody with her. She was originally my wife's, but she also adopted me. My wife tells me that she's all mine, but that doesn't stop her from giving both of us ideas.
That's what plot bunnies do. They have an idea then pass it onto their 'owner'. They keep at it until you give in and write some of it down. Bronwen will often give up if she can get you to at least write the first line or paragraph. In some ways that's a blessing, in others it's a curse.
I mean what is the good of having a vague idea partly written down if she won't give you any more? Bronwen finds this highly amusing. I can hear her giggling in the back of my head when she does this. Being abandoned mid idea is annoying, but what is worse is when she does that and then almost immediately moves onto another idea, because something else has taken her fancy.
The first thing Bronwen ever 'bit' me about was something that was about her. Naturally. Plot bunnies are very vain and love nothing better than for you to write about them.
Bronwen finds interest in all sorts of things. Locations, TV shows, song lyrics, other books, you name it, she can find something to bother you with.
For all my complaints about her, I do love Bronwen and I'm sure my fictional life would be poorer for her absence if she ever decided to move her burrow elsewhere.
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