Of all of the aspects of writing I’ve encountered as a reader and a writer, I think the question “Where do you get your ideas?” is one of the most common questions about writing, since everything grows out of that seed: plot, action, characters, setting – the entire world. However, of equal interest to me is how an idea develops; stories and characters take on lives of their own, and the final result might be something quite different to what the author originally intended. My first – and as yet unpublished – novel took that kind of left turn. I’d never written anything resembling a book, so when I decided to try it, I opted for a form with which I was familiar: a mystery of the Agatha Christie type. That idea lasted about two chapters, and the characters and plot took the bit in their teeth, and I simply held on. Lovers’ Knot, published this past Spring by Running Press, however, was a bit more straightforward. It didn’t veer off into unknown territory, but grew slowly and broadly from a simple beginning. I had been asked to write a short story for a friend’s anthology, as story with two…