So where (or when) d’you get your best ideas?

It happened during a screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I was going out with a friend to see it at the local IMAX – which was well worth the experience, I might add – and right there in the middle of the show, suddenly I needed a pad and pen.

I had an idea.

And not a small idea, either. It was one of those glorious, inspirational moments that has nothing to do with what you’re doing – or seeing – at the time, and one that unfolds like absolute bliss, revealing deeper and deeper plots hidden beneath.

A secret garden of inspiration revealed.

I love these moments.

It came with a title for the third book in the Awakening series, a level of complexity and intrigue added to an already detailed story that will certainly add some extra juice, not to mention plenty of surprises for people who’re already familiar with the Amnari world.

And the worst thing: it happened just when I didn’t have access to a pad and pen, and really couldn’t go dashing from the room right at that moment to write it down.

The only thing I had to hand was my iPhone, which was switched off for the benefit of the other cinema patrons, who at that point were mostly people around the age of six and their parents, squirming at the snogging references (albeit for very different reasons).

So I sat there and had to remember what I’d thought up, knowing I’d have to write it down as soon as I got home.

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this; one of my favourite reasons for going to the cinema and indulging in movie magic is that it’s a time when I’m so engaged in other people’s fantasies that my mind suddenly comes up with ideas for my own.

People always say you should take a pad and pen everywhere with you, but what about the times when you have ideas in impossible places? I love to run, and until last year went running pretty much every day. I had a lot of my best ideas while running, which is not the kind of environment where writing down can take place.

I have a friend who gets all her best ideas in the shower. How inconvenient is that? As bad as running or the cinema, you simply can’t write it down instantly. You’d just get wet.

Yet this is one of the laws of creativity (if creativity can be said to have laws – they might well be better referred to as guidelines). If you’re going somewhere you can’t make notes, you can guarantee you’ll get some brilliant inspiration and be unable to keep a record of it.