I'm harvesting new story ideas. I love this time, so ripe with possibility. I try to open myself, my awareness, as wide as possible to allow in any glimpse of an image, any whisper of a sound that might turn into or feed a spark of idea.

I got the idea for TLOS listening to a song in Irish Gaelic and reading a sign in Spanish at the same time while riding the bus home from work one afternoon, in a period of my life just like this. That combination of the mood of the song, the quality of the afternoon light and the tangling together of Gaelic and Spanish in my mind birthed Megan, TLOS's main character. Or, more accurately, it birthed the concept of Megan. Megan, herself, changed quite a bit from that day until I typed the words 'the end.'

I'm playing with a new story concept now, one that came to me while I was watching Cirque du Soleil's Quidam this past weekend. (Incidentally, the show is great and I highly recommend it if it visits your area. The imagery is incredible.) It's...(wait for it)...another YA. I KNOW. Miss "I'll never write a YA!" is considering her second. But there it is. Like with TLOS, I go where the story takes me and this is definitely a YA story. And now that I've done it once, I'm not so afraid of it. ;)

How about you guys? Where have you gotten your story ideas?