One of the questions I get asked a lot is “where do you get your ideas?” I often shrug and say that I don’t know, but the real honest answer is that ideas are everywhere. I keep a folder on my computer and when something occurs to me, I write a note and stick it in the folder. This “kindling’ is often what it takes to get a story going. The ideas are simple, often not more than a thought or an image. A bowling alley in mid-town Manhattan, a woman who has lost everything in a fire, a sign that says “Hard Bodies”. All of them are kindling for a new story.
Often, for me at least, it’s when two of these little notions collide. In P-town, a man running away from trouble and a picture of a boat called the P-town Queen came together. In my current work in progress, a commercial about the wrong character at a birthday party combined with a write up on an old theatre- together the start of a new romantic comedy.
Of course, it’s a long way from notion to final story. Lots of things happen along the way. That’s the best part; I never know exactly what will turn up and how things will turn out when I begin. I write to find out.