Ideas for stories are everywhere. They come as gifts to the writer.

Here are the gifts I received this week.

And two had to do with rainbows!

 

I was speaking with the Preps on Monday at St Albans East Primary School. We were talking about Chinese dragons and lions, drumming and magic when a rainbow came through the window. I captured it here with my camera as it alighted like the iridescent wings of a butterfly on the head of one of the students.

Then, on that very same day when I arrived home, I found this. A rainbow caught in a bottle. It was a lovely gift my son had left on my writing table.

This amazing tree is called of all things, Dragon’s Blood tree because when cut it exudes a red resin. This resin is also medicinal. It is found only on the small island of Socotra which belongs to the Republic of Yemen off the coast of the ‘Horn of Africa’. Socotra is also home to hundreds of plants found nowhere else on earth. Perhaps I will use this tree in the novel I am writing.

And this gorgeous little creature is the dwarf gecko (Jaragua Sphaero), the smallest reptile in the world at only 16mm in length. I am imagining a picture book called Jaragua.

And my final gift for the week was REALLY special. On Monday, in my talks to the preps, a little girl said that she was going to make me a magic charm. I thought she’d forget but when I went back the next day, she gave it to me and I wore it with joy for the whole day. I felt very protected and blessed.

E.B. White said ‘A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter.’

I am a collector of rainbows.