Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

People Watchin' is my Favorite Hobby!

When I first sat down to write this blog post a few days ago, I had no idea what I wanted to say. Did I want to be quirky and funny? Perhaps serious and inspirational? Or just excited about my upcoming release, which will hit the ebook shelves in less than a month?

With no clear focus, I took myself and my laptop to my local bookstore and started to brainstorm. I made a few starts, but I lost my train of thought over and over again, every time someone new walked in the door or sat down beside me or browsed the shelves close by. One older man was holding a book signing, with his wife by his side, flagging down every person who dared to walk by. Two gorgeous blondes sat down with lapfuls of magazines and proceeded to read them while chatting in German back and forth. A woman on break from an upscale department store sipped coffee a few tables away while staring into space, the saddest look on her face. A teen flipped through pages of a magazine that had Twilight actors and actresses plastered across the front cover. In the background, a young Hispanic guy behind the café counter welcomed customers in a thick, charming accent.

And you know what? I saw stories everywhere. People always ask authors where they get their ideas. I’m beginning to think there isn’t anywhere I DON’T see potential ideas. There is such possibility in analyzing people’s body language, listening to the way they speak, studying the way they interact.

LOL…I don’t want to make you self-conscious! But you never know who’s watching you when you’re relaxing in a coffee shop or racing through a mall – perhaps a famous author who will make you a character in his or her next book. So the next time you’re in a public place, look around. Make up a story in your head about the couple behind you in line at the grocery store, or the senior citizen in the back row of the movie theater, or the teenager wheeling a stroller along a crowded sidewalk. Are you a people-watcher by nature? Maybe you do this already, or maybe not. But give it a try! It might just give you a glimpse inside the busy brain of a fiction writer…