Thoughts: What inspires you?

I write erotica. Often fairly kinky erotica. But, funnily enough, I don't actually spend my whole life shagging. And I often write about things I have never done and don't particularly want to do. That's the beauty of erotica and, indeed, all fiction. It is all made up, the fantasies of the writer's crazy mind. Nobody would have asked Agatha Christie if she'd actually murdered someone. For the reader, enjoyment can be had from being led into a world very different from what their real life is or ever will be.

So where can you find inspiration if you're not actually doing the things you write about? I have a lot of beginnings of stories floating around in my head that have come from experiences far removed from anything to do with sex. I harvested some courgettes from my allotment. They're so obviously phallic it's quite comical. It set me thinking about what a couple who are judging a horticultural contest might do with the exhibits afterwards. That is how a new story is born, this one full of the colourful vocabulary of vegetable varieties. I went swimming in the sea off north Wales. Leaping into the vast ocean is a very sensual experience (mostly the sense of being fecking freezing). I began to think about what might lead a couple to swim to an island or deserted cove and what they might do there. Another story is taking shape.

Inspiration can come from anywhere as long as you get away from the keyboard sometimes and do your thing. For it's your unique take on whatever is 'your thing' that makes your story different from any other writer's. I guess there may be erotica authors out there who spend all their time in bed in the name of research.  But, for me, I need to be out experiencing the wider world and Life with a capital L.

So where do you get your inspiration?