It's one of the questions authors get asked the most - 'Where do you get your ideas from?' Some authors are lucky enough to have one strike while they're sitting on a bus. That's never happened to me, unfortunately, despite many hours spent on buses stuck in traffic. Others keep a notebook by their beds in case inspiration comes in those nocturnal hours.

My own ideas tend to be the result of an altogether more plodding process - the sitting down at my desk for hours and days, and the compiling of a list of subjects which interest me, or characters I'd like to write about. Then, eventually, I've got several possibilities nailed down. Hurrah!

And now the hard bit starts. Which, if any, of the ideas are fresh and original? If not - and originality is generally pretty hard to achieve - is the way I'm planning to tell the stories original? What direction is women's fiction moving in? What stories are readers reading now, and why? How will I sell my book? Is the 'hook' strong enough? Will my agent and publisher think my story is relevant and exciting? Most importantly, will readers actually want to read it?

Then, usually at the end of all this, I decide that all my ideas are rubbish anyway, and into the bin they go.

But somehow, something will rise from the ashes of this sorry process, usually a few days after I decide I'm career changing into something more dependable. A little nugget of an idea will refuse to stay in the bin and keep hopping back into my brain. A character that I developed for one scenario will suddenly suggest themselves for something entirely different. Over days and sometimes weeks things begin to clarify in my head, the smoke clears and I start to realise that this idea and I belong together. We were made for each other.

And that I've taken so long to come up with it, that I'm already behind deadline.