With an insatiable appetite for other people’s business, Erica will readily strike up conversation with strangers in the hope of unearthing a useful gem for her writing. She finds it the best way to write authentic characters for her novels, although her two grown-up sons claim they will never recover from a childhood spent in a perpetual state of embarrassment at their mother’s compulsion.
No matter how much you love writing, there will always be days when you need inspiration from one muse or another. In fact, I would argue that inspiration is not just a desirable thing, it’s an integral part of the writing process. Every writer needs inspiration to produce inspired writing. And sometimes, it can come from the unlikeliest sources.
I know two kinds of writers: those who love nothing better than to hit the road to promote their latest novel, and those who tremble at the mere thought of it. I am in the latter group. Put simply, I’m terrified of public speaking. Even now as I type these words, I can feel a knot of anxiety tightening in the pit of my stomach.