Nuggets of Inspiration

A few days ago I read a post by Angie Ledbetter about Snagging the Nuggets. She talked about how she's heard writers say, "I have nothing to write about." And then she pointed out that surely can't be the case; not if one's eyes and mind and imagination are open, because inspiration and ideas are all around us. I wholeheartedly agree.

It could be something as "insignificant" as a penny found upon a sidewalk. How did it get there? Who dropped it? And from there you could create a children's picture book about the journey of Pete the Penny. Or that couple in the corner booth, the one arguing with overt animation? Yes, they could be headed toward a relationship disaster, or they could just be expressing their frustration and despair over their ill child's last hospital stay. And there's your next short story premise.

Ideas come from wherever you're willing to see them. Just this morning I spotted a car parked across the road, out from our driveway. It's a stretch of road with few houses, even fewer places to pull over. As I watched the driver move about in her car, arranging this, checking that, my imagination (or perhaps rampant paranoia) took over. Is there a reason she parked in front of my house? Is she secretly taking notes about our overgrown grass, planning to turn us in to Lawn Enforcement? And wait, is that a passenger I see in the car? Maybe the driver is creating a diversion by spitting out the window, so I won't notice her accomplice is stealing our mailbox.

Okay, so in all actuality, the woman probably spilled her coffee and had to sop it up before her seat turned brown and landed her in a pile of life-long poop jokes. But you see how you could turn the most innocent circumstance into something big? It just takes a little imagination (or perhaps rampant paranoia) to weave a great tale.

Tell me about something seemingly insignificant that led to one of your written pieces.