How I get my story ideas

Motherhood, thirty-one years of marriage, family, friends, strangers, overhearing conversations when sitting in restaurants, and my boxers. These are how I get my story ideas.

Motherhood

I could fill an entire book on the crazy things I’ve heard my kids say over the years. Everything from “I’m a woman and I’ve got knees”. (She meant to say needs, but she said what she thought she heard on television and touched her own knees when she made the statement). I’ll never forget a drive home one afternoon about twenty plus years ago with my son. After scolding him, I said “I’ve lost my patience”. In the sweetest voice ever, he said, “Mommy, I’ll help you find it.”

I’ve been married almost thirty-one years. If you’ve been married to the same person that long, you are sure to have ammunition, er…story ideas. The most current one was this morning. My husband opened up his Valentine card that I placed on his pillow and a small spider fell out.

A REAL SPIDER

How it got in there eludes us. I’m sure my husband thought I was getting him early for April Fools Day.

Nahh. I have something else planned for that. Shhh.

Even though my stories, “Paisley Memories” and “Dancing with Dandelions” are fiction stories, I’ve sprinkled trinkets of actual events  through-out and put a spin on them. But rest assured, the story as a whole is fiction and in no way represents my life or what I experienced as a parent of a child with Down Syndrome.

Authors say to be careful what you say to them, it might make it in their book. It couldn’t be more true in my case. Funny expressions and quotes from family members and friends are finding their way in my novels.

My mother always told me to mind my own business. If you’re speaking loud enough in a restaurant for me to hear your conversation, and it’s juicy…I’ma gonna listen!

SORRY MAMA!

Story ideas are everywhere.  What story ideas do these pictures give you?

Zelle