Writing ideas will always find their time

You may not have heard of the Sad Walk, but it is something most writers have done from time to time — even successful best seller authors like our own Hazel Gaynor, writes Brian Byrne. It's what you do when you are bereft of ideas about what to write next. In the hope that inspiration will strike as you pace about somewhere outside your working space.

At Hazel's recent signing in Woodbine Books of Christmas With the Queen, co-written with her American author friend Heather Webb, we had a discussion about writing ideas, where I suggested that "an idea may not always arrive for its time, but the time will always come for an idea." The moral being, always save an idea even if it doesn't seem possible to make something of it when it first hesitantly taps you on your mental shoulder.

Coincidently, Hazel had just completed an article for Writing.ie on how an idea she'd had for a Wizard of Oz spin-off, way back before she was a published writer, finally found its way to its own book, the Before Dorothy novel coming next summer.

You can read her piece here, and for all you writers out there, it shows that the Sad Walk can indeed work, but the inspiration hit may already have been lurking on your bookshelf or in the back of your own mind. Or both.

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