Where do you get your ideas from? At the moment, this question is bugging me, because I've finished my attempt at a novel and want to write something else. But I need a new idea and, at the moment, I'm stuck.  If you write Edited Guide articles, you might have a subject about which you're expert (like the Isle of Wight!) Or there may be something you're interested in researching. But if you're writing fiction, where do you start?

I studied the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Sussex (now at New Writing South in Brighton). Our first term was described as 'truth and lies': the truth being autobiography and the lies the fiction we were supposed to weave round it. We were encouraged to mine childhood memories, look at family photos, and think about nursery rhymes that meant something to us. Some of us found the last unfruitful but, if you expand it to mean the soundtrack of your life, it has more potential.

I suppose autobiography is most productive if you've lived an interesting life: travelled widely or had an unusual occupation. If you've read John Le Carre's Smiley novels you might have guessed he'd been an intelligence officer. He sounds as if he knows his stuff. But if you've lived a boring suburban life, the material from which you can draw material is limited. One of my favourite writers, Rose Tremain has this to say "The old dictum 'write about what you know' has always seemed feeble to me. It is the strange, the other, the unknown yet knowable thing that has always drawn me to it, making the process of writing a novel a journey of revelation and discovery, not just for the reader, but for me, the writer, too".

There are other sources of inspiration, of course. An earlier version of the Creative Writing Programme had a second strand, which concentrated on drawing from myths and legends. Some ancient stories deal with such archetypal themes that they are still relevant today. Personally, I feel more drawn to the real stories of history. Perhaps I should choose a time, an event, or a person and do some research. Or go to an art gallery and look for a picture that speaks to me.

What do you think? Where do you get your ideas from? I should love to hear from you.