Where do you get your ideas?

It’s a question I’ve been asked time and time again, and really the only honest answer is Neil Gaiman’s: “I make them up. Out of my head.”

Ideas are a dime a dozen. They cling to every surface like soap suds — shivering, translucent, on the wrong side of delicate.

Yes: writing stories is like blowing bubbles. Sometimes your ideas burst on close inspection, other times you try and try but only produce lame-ass soap sprays.

The true true magic isn’t finding an idea, it’s growing one into a full-sized bubble. And the most magical moment of all is when you finish that story, that bubble, and release it into the air to travel further than you ever could.

Because it’s not where you come from, it’s where you are going that matters.