My fifteen-year-old cousin is running for parliamentarian of her school’s student council. (There are only four weeks left of school, but they do the elections for the next school year at the end of the current school year.) Since I work as a graphic designer, she asked if I would help her make some posters to get everyone’s attention so they’d vote for her.
She came over last night and I set up a card table in the computer room, where all my scrapbooking supplies are, and while we worked and listened to music on my computer I told her about the books I had finished writing (Libby and Emma’s books) and the one I was working on (Natalie’s).
When I was done she looked at me and said, “How do you come up with your stories? I would never have thought of all those details.”
I’ve been writing stories since I was a kid and this has always been a common question from people who don’t write. I don’t mind the question, but I never really have an answer. I don’t know how I come up with stories or where they come from. How do writers come up with ideas? Is it that our brains are wired differently than everyone else’s?