Stories, Stories Everywhere!

Today I'd like to encourage you to look for stories in unlikely places. Here are ten "everyday" suggestions for places you can look, just to get you going:
Today's news headline.
The woman in line in front of you at the grocery store.
The clerk checking you out at the grocery store.
The radio D.J. you listen to every day.
The gum under the table.
The abandoned, broken-down car on the side of the highway.
The frazzled look on a preschool teacher's face.
An email subject line
A fortune cookie
A construction worker's face
Truthfully, there are stories all around us! In order to find them, you have to S--T--R--E--T--C--H your imagination! Don't just take things at face value. Look deeper. When you see a movie, ask yourself, "What was the author REALLY trying to say?" When you gaze into a friend's tired eyes, ask yourself, "What is she really going through that she's not telling me?" When you pass by a hitch-hiker on the side of the road, ask yourself, "I wonder what his real story is?"
We don't have to look far to find our "topics," do we? I know I don't! I can be standing in line to pay my bill at a restaurant and come up with the plot for an entire novel based on the interaction of the person in line ahead of me and the clerk behind the counter. Surely you've done the same!
"Getting" ideas and "acting on" ideas... Now those are two very different things. In our next teaching, I'll talk a little bit more about what to do with those ideas when they come. In the meantime, settle on one of the above (or something from your everyday life). Let your imagination run wild. Don't settle for what you see and hear... imagine, imagine, imagine! The possibilities are endless!