What if...?

Like many of us, I am a Superhero in disguise.  By day (Monday to Friday), I am a mild mannered Administrator, but, for the rest of the time I Am A Writer.  This means that at any given time I exist in one of the following states:

• Writing.
• Thinking about writing
• Wondering what I could be writing now if I wasn't waiting for a bus/train or having to cook the dinner etc
• Wishing I was writing but having to work instead
• Wishing I could write 'because I've got a whole bloody day I could be using because this is a weekend/day off/snow day', but not able to think of anything worth writing
• Editing (or trying to write a synopsis or pitch letter)
• Reading
• Doing housework (Seriously? We let you get away with cooking the dinner, but honestly...signed, husband and children)

So....

I am very often asked "Where do you get your ideas from?".  This has happened so often I normally smile and say "Oh, all over the place.".  But when I got asked the other day (someone started talking to me on the train) I really thought about it on the long walk back from the station.  Where do we get out ideas from? I've always subscribed to the theory of the multiverse, you know, what would have happened if I turned left instead of right, or if I hadn't missed the bus or if I'd been a man...the list is endless.  I like the idea that somewhere out there are multiple versions of me playing out all those alternate decisions and leading off in tangents of their own.  I am a science fiction writer, so this thought appeals to me.  But no matter what you write you still get your ideas from that 'what if?' moment.  It doesn't haver to be sci fi, the 'what if?' thing works for any fiction, from literary to genre.

What if I hadn't decided to write this blog in my lunch hour?

I might be writing, going for a walk or even actually eating lunch.  If I had gone for a walk, who might I have met? What might I have seen? If I had eaten lunch, would I have brought in my own or made the dubious assumption that the canteen had something I could eat? If I had been writing, what plot twists would I have uncovered?

See, 'what if?' works for anything, not just sci fi.

That leads me nicely on to this blog.  I want to explore the whole 'what if?' thing as it mixes in with my daily life and share them with others.  The thoughts that ping into my head as I stare out of the train window or wait for a bus.  The moments of pure inspiration that occur exactly when I need them, or, more often than not, when I can't write them down.  The pleasure I get from reading a good book and where that takes my thoughts. 

Somewhere in the multiverse there are people who will want to share this with me.  Hopefully I am writing this blog in the right one.

Penny