MARJORIE SANDOR: Well, actually, I think that ideas really can come from anywhere, as long as it's kind of a fragment-- a little bit of a story from-- even from family or from long ago, or even a piece of music that seems to have a story in it. I have looked at obituaries. The novel I'm currently working on is totally based on a CD of a Canadian group that is writing about 16th-century Spanish music. That's where the idea came from.
But I think the key is that there is only a little bit to go on and that it kind of inspires that idea of a search and a hunger to discover things. And discovery is really 9/10 invention, so-- or invention is 9/10 discovery, whichever way you want to think about that. But I think it has to do with just having a tiny bit to go on that sort of sparks the curiosity.