[glendalarke]

That's it exactly, Holbrook. Sideways brains, that's us...weird. ;)

I was whisked away into another world last night, and I was reminded of the problems of first contact, a la SF alien worlds. My husband and I were invited to a gathering of people from Libya, celebrating their safe return from the Haj. At the lift, my husband was whisked away to one apartment (where all the men were) while I was taken to another (where the women were).
The trouble with this was that only one of the women really spoke English, and as she was the main cook for the evening, she didn't have much time to talk to me. Worse, my Arabic is confined to stuff like Inshallah and Bismillah and shukran. I was forcibly reminded why TV space operas have things like implanted simultaneous translators...!

To get back to the topic, there must have been half a dozen things that happened at that gathering which seeded ideas. We ate out of a communal disk (scrumptious coucous) but one of the kids had a bad cold.
And that gave me an idea:what would happen if a stranger arrived at such a gathering with a communicable disease?

The women, every time they wanted to dive across the public corridor to a third apartment where the cooking was taking place, had to cover their lovely dresses with shapeless robes and head scarves - even though it was only ten paces. (Idea: oooo, lots. e.g. About societies where dress is both confining and defining and yet where private dress code is quite different...) And so on.

I am eternally glad I am one of those weirdos that have ideas jumping at me from all directions.

[Rocket Sheep]

***hands Glenda a jar with a tiny fish in it***
Psst... put this in your ear.


I have ideas jumping at me from everywhere too... but if I repeated all them they'd give me a vacation somewhere white with really soft walls. They're already looking at me funny and I've been holding back!

I think there is a certain amount of judgement in selecting what will appeal and resonate with other people, yes? And a lot of skill in conveying that into a written medium in a voice that others will listen to. A knack for combining several ideas in a manner that makes a story more special than the rest. So it's not just a case of being 'out there' it involves skill and judgment and an appreciation of readers. I don't suppose you could lend me a little of that could you? After all... I loaned you a babblefish.

As far as first contact stories go... have you ever read Roadside Picnic? That is the best, the ultimate, the most believeable, first contact story. The aliens stop off, treat us like ants on a roadside and carry on, leaving behind their garbage - disease, pollution and discarded technology.

[sillysod]

This is a sublime topic, because the answer is bound to be different for each writer.

Some of us are irritated at being asked this question, some of us are not. I think that's personally, I like to delve into my own mind to see where I got my ideas (mostly so that I can try to get some more). I'm not a published author, so my comments might not count, but for those authors who are somewhere in between wanting to hit the next person who asks this question and wanting to bore them for hours, I think Stephen King's solution for his short stories was pretty good. In two of his collections, he put an appendix where he put a note on each story. And I think that introducitons and afterword perform the same function for novels.

If someone asks, you can just point to the book.

Personally, I get at least 15-20 ideas just from a ride on the bus, but by the time I get home, only about five are left, and four of them seem crap. But muses are fickle creatures, aren't they?

PS: I agree with the comment that the people who ask aren't really at fault. But maybe that isn't entirely true, because how can we be so sure that they'll remember our answer? We must remember that most of these questions are asked at parties where all parties are half-drunk anyway.

PPS: I'd also like to point to Stephen King's answer to the question: 'How do you write?'
He says: 'One word at a time.'

[glendalarke]

Of course your comments count, sillysod! If you write, you are a writer, and you have ideas. And they come from somewhere...

Perhaps the ideas is what makes us writers in the first place. If the ideas didn't beg to be written down, we wouldn't be so obsessed!

I'm off to the Lost World of Borneo and no internet connection for 10 days - I'll drop in again the moment I am back.