The age-old question: where do your ideas come from?

I think many ideas come out of the general “ether of knowledge”. You know how it goes: you read/watch/hear something one day, whether from a passerby on the street or from a news anchor or from an article. You forget about it. Three months later, your subconscious spits out a little seed of an idea that probably germinated from that tiny spark of information you picked up all those months ago—except that tiny spark also fused with your own personality and history, with people you know and morals you believe in. It becomes your own. I think this is why many authors will tell you that their story or character just “came to me one day, fully formed”, which is what frequently happens to me as well. I think this is also why great writers read, observe, and absorb as much as they possibly can.