I'm often asked where I get my ideas, and I always say, "Ideas are all around." Just consider my morning walk.
There's a homeless man sleeping in the park that I walk through every day. I wonder what his story is. And where on earth is that chicken I hear clucking, here in the middle of the city? A hot air balloon is flying overhead; who's in it? Workmen are gathering around the old tuberculosis hospital that is being remade into a fancy hotel; I pass the old nurses' dorm and wonder about the young women who worked there decades ago. A film crew is setting up for a morning shoot; a girl with a clipboard tells me the movie is "Warrior Woman." They're near the house I once wrote a short story about, called "The Crayon House" because of its wild colors--who painted it like that? Penny, the sweet greyhound, wants to be petted when I pass her yard, but Trixie, across the street, snarls at me as she always does. I missed the guy who goes to work on a skateboard every morning at exactly 6:20, but the guy on the motor scooter honks, as usual.
And this is just an ordinary morning, 7 am in Albuquerque. Plenty of stories here, like tomatoes on a vine, and mine for the picking!
There's a homeless man sleeping in the park that I walk through every day. I wonder what his story is. And where on earth is that chicken I hear clucking, here in the middle of the city? A hot air balloon is flying overhead; who's in it? Workmen are gathering around the old tuberculosis hospital that is being remade into a fancy hotel; I pass the old nurses' dorm and wonder about the young women who worked there decades ago. A film crew is setting up for a morning shoot; a girl with a clipboard tells me the movie is "Warrior Woman." They're near the house I once wrote a short story about, called "The Crayon House" because of its wild colors--who painted it like that? Penny, the sweet greyhound, wants to be petted when I pass her yard, but Trixie, across the street, snarls at me as she always does. I missed the guy who goes to work on a skateboard every morning at exactly 6:20, but the guy on the motor scooter honks, as usual.
And this is just an ordinary morning, 7 am in Albuquerque. Plenty of stories here, like tomatoes on a vine, and mine for the picking!