The Power of Half

When you're writing a novel, it's interesting to see where ideas appear. The other day I was watching TV and a father/daughter duo was on the Today Show, promoting their new book, The Power of Half. They are an upper-class family from Atlanta who sold their gigantic mansion and downsized, giving half to charity and getting involved in a project in Africa. That was interesting, but what was more interesting to me was their affluent lifestyle and how they threw money at everything, and how harmful it was to their kids. That is exactly the situation of the family in my novel when the story opens. And, they also describe how telling their affluent friends caused them to be socially rejected. Perfect. This is exactly the type of situation I'm writing about. So now their nonfiction book has become inspiration for a talking-mixmaster novel. Funny how one seemingly unrelated idea feeds into another.