Hi. I’m sometimes asked where my ideas come from so here’s a flavor of my mind at work.
In my first novel, I wanted to introduce a new character. I had already decided that Shirley was going to be independent and spiky but able to manage all of life’s little foibles. I also wanted her to live in Granada in Spain – a city that I know well, but not necessarily to be a native of that place. Later there would be chapters that used Granada as a setting but not always in the present day. This is what I came up with.
“Granada in September is a glorious place to live. The sun is still hot. The snows have not yet reached the higher slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The tourists are starting to thin out.
No it’s not thought Shirley Holmes as she wiped the sweat that was running down her face. Mind you she had already been running for five minutes. The Albaicin district had been there for 700 years and the only time that anyone ran at eleven in the morning was during times of invasion. However, the previous inhabitants probably didn’t have a wreck of a moped that wouldn’t start – again, combined with being late for an auction that was as important to her career as anything that she had ever done.
She was able to maintain a studio in the old Moorish district of Granada because of commissions like this one. Only this was bigger than usual. She made a comfortable living restoring old paintings to their former glory as well as acting as agent for one client in particular at the various auctions that took place throughout the year in Andalucia.”
The novel is called Mirrors and is available from Amazon. Here’s a link.
Under 1000 days 