Three years ago I was giving a talk at a writers' conference on  where I got the ideas for my stories from . I had , as usual, overprepared and had far too much material to use in a 40 minute talk so I contacted Carl Styants, editor of the writers' magazine Writers' Forum and asked him if he'd be interested in an article on the subject?

Or, I added cheekily, working on the principle that if you don't ask you don't get, maybe even a series?

To my delight, he said yes,  so for the last two years I have been writing a column called Ideas' Store - and I still haven't run out of things to write about.

One of the great things about writing a monthly column (apart from the regular pay cheque) is the feedback I get from the readers. It's fascinating to hear what works for them.

...... Now for a bit of name dropping.....

The other thing about writing the column is that it gives me an excuse to contact really well known writers and ask them where the inspiration for their latest book came from?  I've had wonderfully generous quotes from Katie Fforde, Judy Astley, Freya North, Raymond Allen, Jill Mansell , Penny Jordan, Anna Jacobs - and, the biggest response of all was when I asked a group of Romantic Novelists if they 'd ever written for revenge! (The majority said Yesss!)