When you’re thinking about a new story — whether you discover your story in the form of a plan or outline or in the form of sentences and scenes, whether you decide on a theme or watch it emerge — this is wise advice.

“What do you care about the most, right now, as you plan a new story? What hurts? What makes you really angry? There will be something in your life, or in the life of a friend, or in the news, that sparks an idea in your mind. Maybe it ties in with another idea, and so a third, new one is born?”

– Anne Perry, The Writer, November 2011