She's not gone
I'm just wrapping up the first draft of my latest story, which I'm calling, She's not gone.
The title alone gives me goosebumps! I've been thinking of the story as a Herbie (do you remember that?) crossed with Stephen King. It has come out as more of a Stephen King crossed with a ghost story but that's fine by me. I thought it might be useful to talk about where the inspiration for the story came from. People often ask me where I get my ideas. Jokingly I reply, from a secret place! Which, in a way is true. In reality, ideas come from lots of different places. From dreams, books, films, imagination and that magic space where writing telepathy takes place. I'm terrified of the day when no new ideas appear.
Anyway here were go. Where did the idea for She's not gone come from?
When I was younger, a lot younger and I'd not been working for long, I didn't have spare money for cars but needed one to get to work every day. There were no buses from the little village I lived in and trains were difficult too. I seem to remember the battered car I was driving at the time, broke down beyond repair and I was in a bit of a jam. That's when my Dad kindly stepped in and gave me his old banger. It was a rusty brown coloured Vauxhall Cavalier. Now not long after I started driving it around, it would cut out on me. Just in an instant. One minute it would be tootling away merrily and then it would cut out and not start again. It did this on a few odd occasions and I remember I had to stop at a house and ask to use their phone. This was before mobiles were a thing and even though I'd been brought up not to talk to strangers, my opinions were limited. The road was extremely busy, it was dark and had no pavements. It was either do that or risk walking home and getting knocked over. A strange eerie feeling knocking on a strangers door in the night. It all worked out for the best and in the end, it turned out it was a problem with the fuses!
So that's where the idea for this story came from. Of course, because it's fiction it's a whole lot more and I love to weave in suspense and thriller elements. You won't see the ending coming!! Hence the story was born. Next it's all down to the writing. There's no other way to create a story, you have an idea and then run with it. Hoping that what comes out will be good. Every writer's process is unique, some like to plot, some like to fly by the seat of the pants but in the end, it all comes down to the same thing. Writing. Staring at the paper or screen and hoping.