How I got the idea for “Trans-Siberian Express”

Of all the questions asked of fiction writers, the one most common is: Where do you get your ideas? It is a crucial question that goes to the heart of the storyteller’s art. One might generalize and assert that it comes from an amalgam of one’s life’s experiences, stories told by others, books read, movies seen, dreams and fantasies, and the molten mix in the cauldron of one’s imagination. This is one writer’s attempt to pinpoint the spark that ignited the idea that became the story and its aftermath.

It must be said at the outset that a committed novelist, like a prospector searching for gold, is always on the lookout for an idea that will spark a story. Every observation, every person he meets, every episode in his life, every thought, memory, reflection and cogitation is geared, consciously or subconsciously, to the concept of what will make a story. Everything in the zeitgeist was and is fair game.…