In the last few months, I’ve found myself running around Hampstead Heath thinking ‘I need to find an idea for a short story.’ Thanks to sites like Creative Writing Ink, I’ve got a monthly alert of short story competitions and deadlines for magazine submissions, all laid out on my Google calendar. The problem is, I don’t have that much of a back catalogue yet, so for each one I need to come up with something new. And, funnily enough, simply trying to think of ‘a story idea’ doesn’t work. Trust me.

As far as non-fiction stuff is concerned, I find that much easier to spark ideas. Usually, the book(s) I’m currently reading give me more than enough scope to rattle on for a few hundred words. Either the ideas explored in the book, or the way it’s written, allows me to go off on a personal tangent into my…