One of the most frequently asked questions of an author is where you get ideas. I used to think maybe you could get them in the Yellow Pages, I tried that, though they’re not there. That’s really not the problem for professional writers that it seems to be, ideas are simply anywhere.
The problem is figuring what to do with the idea after you get it, that’s where the trouble begins. I will sometimes get an idea for a book and it will take me years to find a way to deal with it. For example, “The Whipping Boy” which is a short novel that won the Newbery, I spent 10 years off on the wrong track.
I had the idea but I had the wrong concept for it and it just wouldn’t go, wouldn’t work with what I was doing. And I tried it over and over again for 10 years and finally
I should mention here that if you’re not persistent as a writer, if you don’t keep trying, you’ll never get anything finished because there are always problems.
I just felt this was a problem that I would eventually solve, which is true. So I had to go Europe and I made up my mind when I came back, I would try it once more time and if it didn’t work out, I would burn every manuscript to get it out of my system.
But this time I just let the story write itself instead of trying to impose myself on the story, let it write itself. And out came The Whipping Boy that those of you who have read it, read. That’s pretty much the story of ideas. Some ideas just don’t work and some do.