Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

I have been asked that question a lot. Do you ever get up in the morning and find your mind wandering while your drinking your first cup of coffee? You know how your conscious mind is still half asleep and you tend to think in strings of barely related ideas? Maybe you see a photo that triggers one thought that jumps into another and you go from a goat with its horns stuck in a fence to a barely related thought about fences and end up with thinking about asteroid mining. Yes, I have such thought strings, and I bet you do too.

Writers, inventors, any creative thinkers learn to harness some of those random thoughts and ask themselves -

What if? 

That’s probably one of the most powerful questions we can ask. The possibilities are endless. Are they all rational? Of course not, but the way the question stretches the mind is what creates growth and seeds the ground of imagination.

I write Science Fiction, so I’ll throw out a few what ifs in that area.

What if -

We were exploring Mars and discovered intelligent life the size of an ant?

A solar storm erupted powerful enough to fry every single electrical device on the planet?

Someone discovered a way to make glass as strong as steel?

A virus infects a human colony that triggers psychic abilities?

Now think about the possible consequences of any of those conditions. That’s where ideas come from. It’s not that hard. The hard part is taking the seed of an idea and planting it in fertile ground, then nurturing it to make it grow into a story.

I challenge you to keep a list of idea seeds to plant whenever you find the right ground.