Writers are often asked where they get their ideas. I had an interesting experience with this on Sunday, when I was talking to my nieces and nephew, who are 8, 11, and 15. They know I’m a writer, and although we don’t talk in extensive detail about my books–I certainly wouldn’t let the kiddos read my very adult stories–they do ask what I’m writing. It’s kind of cute.

Anyway, I was talking with my 11-year-old niece about the story I want to write for NaNoWriMo this year in November. I was speaking about it in very general terms, as I always do with the kids: it’s a futuristic about a heroine who is a former criminal and wants to turn her life around, etc. So she pipes up with, “I have an idea.” I was expecting to hear one of her more fantastic ideas, such as the ones she’s given me in the past. Instead, she says, “Why don’t you have her sister be a criminal still so they have to fight?”

Huh, I thought. Why not, indeed?

It’s a simplistic concept, as one might expect from an 11-year-old, and it may turn out to be another family member rather than a sister, but still . . . it’s got definite possibilities.

Writers get ideas from everything around them, even from 11-year-old nieces.