Where do you get all those ideas? Anywhere, everywhere.

You could go personal. When’s the last time you cried? What happened?

What you experience is singular to you, but also touches on the human experience.

Because I write fantasy, a speculative element usually appears.

Or you could go impersonal, from prompts.

“The Fox Spirit’s Retelling” was inspired by this poster that then turned out to be the cover of the event, with an excerpt from the story. To be reprinted in November in Tales from the Cryptids, free to read at Small Wonders.

This was such a cool event that Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam organized. From the writing submissions, she selected like a dozen writers’ pieces then gave them as prompts to the artists. (When I showed my spouse the options, then which I picked, he said he knew I was going to pick that one.) Same thing happened with artists. It was lovely trading creativity, and restarting my writing passion.

Some anthology calls also inspire a story. For example, Brigid’s Gate had a call for western splatterpunk horror. My gut reaction was ‘nope!’ because westerns have been historically terrible for women and Chinese people. But wait, I can fix that. That led to “Ghost Festival in the Desert” (free to read at Gavagai.) If you enjoyed that western horror, I wrote something in that universe from another character’s point of view, “Lu’s Laundry and Other Services” (The Rumpus, Sunday Scaries).

Happy(?) writing.