Clare Furniss

From everywhere. I get them from things that happen in my own life, stories in the news or programmes I see on TV, from snippets of conversations that I overhear on trains or sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, from pictures, from dreams, from memories, from history. I think the key to being an writer is to be really nosy. You have to constantly ask “What if…?” and “Why?”. The answer to those questions sometimes turns out to be a story, or at least the beginning of one. It also helps to be a pessimist.  If you’re prone to wondering “What would happen if this situation went horribly wrong?”, you’ve got a whole supply of ideas right there just waiting to be written. After all, stories where everything goes absolutely right all the time tend to be pretty boring…