Writing Ideas Come From Somewhere

Writers get asked all the time: Where do your ideas come from?  And most of the time the answer is, "Beat's the heck out of me!"  But once in a while, ideas come from somewhere.

I was walking down the hallway of a large office building going to a dentist appointment.  Each of the office doors had a sign outside.  Law Offices of Elmer J. Fudd, Black Mesa Research, Aperture Labs, etc.  Well, one of the offices said, Space Available.  I thought that was the coolest sign ever.  I imagined they were one of the X-prize competitors, working on commercial travel to the Moon.  It took me about 10 seconds to realize that the office was empty, and that was an advertisement to rent the office.  How mundane!

I checked in at the front desk of the dentist, and sat waiting for my appointment.  And suddenly it hit me.  Space Available!  What a great title for a book.  I could write about a lonely space pilot and his robot sidekick traveling through Earth orbit collecting space junk for salvage, and they discover an alien artifact that holds the secret to Faster Than Light travel and the survival of the polluted Earth.  What a great story!

So in a year or so, when you go to the Sci-Fi shelves and are browsing through the B section (alphabetically by author, of course), look for Space Available, a roller-coaster of an adventure in Earth-orbit.  Or something like that.

-S