All That Surfing Is Work! (Sort Of.)

You know all that surfing you do on the Internet? That's a great source for ideas.

Yes, surfing around looking at things can be a huge waste of time too. But you're going to do it anyway, right? So you might as well be looking for story ideas there.

Here's an example of a story idea I got from the Internet: a blog I follow about comic books and gaming posted a link to a story about a man in Florida who was killed for a rare Magic: The Gathering card he owned, the Black Lotus. My Spidey-sense for story ideas immediately tingled! There are great old noir mysteries with titles like The Maltese Falcon and The Blue Dahlia, and The Black Lotus sounded like a great title for  a modern mystery story. This one wouldn't be about a jewel-encrusted statue or a swanky night-club. Instead it would be about a guy killed for his expensive Magic card, and the quest to get it back.

I'm going to write that story someday. For now, the idea is just written down in one of my idea books. But that one is going to get written. Trust me.

Want to know another secret? The book I'm writing right now was inspired by a real-life story I read on the Internet.

But I'm still not going to tell you about it!