I don't know...I worry about it because I write from life, mostly, and the interesting things about my life seem both 1. receding in the past and 2. limited in the first place.However: I want a series, although saying my character has legs feels a little sick, even for me.

I'd like to write a book about work in America I've got a very dark romantic farce playing out in my life right now...if I ever found an ending? Great story, for the right audience(not the people that cry at "The Notebook")

Still feel bad about not having the skills for Pornathology, too. Heh...that list is very "genre? We don't need no stinking genre!" I doubt seriously I'll be able to ever do all those things, much less work on "The Wire", but you know, aim high, right?

I'm with erika. All the interesting stuff in my life is long over and fading fast into "bullshit territory" rather than honest memory. Doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying, though.

Well, I don't really think I'll run out of ideas. But the way an idea comes together for me has a certain bolt-from-the-blue feel to it. It's not something I've been able to force so far. E.g., I have a character who I really think deserves a story--I can picture him very clearly, and he has leading man written all over him. He's personable, smart, brave, and he's going to live through interesting times and have lots of adventures in the process. But a story for him to star in hasn't come to me yet. He has more or less important roles in stories starring several of his family members, but that's not the same. And on the opposite side, there are events in history I'd love to frame a story around, but the characters just haven't come to life for me yet.

So, since I don't seem to control those "Aha!" moments where character, setting, and the beginnings of a plot mate, I don't know that I can guarantee that they'll keep happening at least once or twice a year.

I'm sure they'll keep happening, Susan. That's what happens to me. So, I write something down. Even if all it's comrised of if the description of the character, or a quick vignette of something I imagine happening. Maybe they'll get used, maybe they won't. At least it's down on paper, or pixels, where I can get at it later.

There are no guarantees. And that being so, what's the point in worrying about it?

Honestly, you're alive, shit happens, you distill.

And why does the impetus have to be the "interesting" stuff? You stop at restaurant on the road to somewhere, and overhear some byplay between the waitress and a trucker, and there's an entire story seed, right there.

There's that, too, I guess. You don't have to kill somebody to write murder, just understand the urge...which, I contend, everyone does.(A lot of people get horrified upon hearing that from me, so I don't say it much, anymore.)

and overhear some byplay between the waitress and a trucker, and there's an entire story seed, right there.

Very true. I forget that, sometimes. My tendency to feed off my own feelings and experiences is self-limiting.

Note to self: pay more attention!

Sail, erika, I honestly think the best stories waiting to be told are the ones that drift past us in snippets.

If one comes by and it grabs you at all, write it down, and fast. Don't let it slip away. Nothing says you have to use it, and sometimes it can sit in a noebook for ten years and the story you write when you finally do dig it out is not the story you'd have written ten years earlier. Because you've aged, grown, evolved, added, dubtracted, whatever.

If one comes by and it grabs you at all, write it down, and fast

I think that's going to have to be a new mission statement. I write a lot of my own feelings down as they occur, but I don't often stop to detail something that I saw happen to someone else. I'm only getting in the habit, lately, of telling something that happened to me, but from someone else's viewpoint, which is a very interesting exercise, also. Time to expand my horizons.

Sail, erika, I honestly think the best stories waiting to be told are the ones that drift past us in snippets.

Exactly. Every day you're going to hear something or see something on teh news (or at the movie theater, waiting in line, or walking through the grocery store). You just take that little seed and water it, and give it some sun, and talk to it, and it'll grow.

But a story for him to star in hasn't come to me yet.

But can't you play "what if"? Does it have to be an aha! moment? Can't you say, What if Hero goes to...Panama? Or a bar on the Lower East Side? And then what if he meets a man with one leg? Or a girl with a puppy? If you have a character you like and who interests you, you can play with him, run different scenarios through your head, see what sticks or what seems like it would be something this guy would really need to fight through.

I almost never have aha! moments, except as relates to different parts of the plot, or someone's motivation or backstory.