Where do your ideas come from?

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Most of my ideas come from “What if” moments.  Say I am reading a book, and thought that the hero did a spectacularly stupid thing.  What if he did something else instead.
Like Romeo and Juliet.
What if:
— the letter got to Romeo in time?
— He didn’t take the poison when he was in the crypt?
— Juliet decided to run away with him when he left Verona?
You know stuff like that.

My best ideas come when I am doing something else. Like sweeping, or washing dishes, or taking a sit down bath. When my body is on auto pilot, my mind can gnaw away on ideas.
Little things come together.

I was startled by my neighbor today because I was working on the dialog of a scene of my NaNo project. . .OUT LOUD. His wife had been a writer, so I am hoping that he is used to that sort of thing. Or else he may be moving soon. Or think I am crazy. He hasn’t SEEN crazy!!
Yes, I am a self talker.

I need to attach headphones to my cellphone so it looks like I am taking a call.  Instead I am talking to my voice recorder app. (Which I haven’t downloaded yet)

My BEST ideas come to me in dreams. Those are the ideas (if I can remember them) which I just know in my gut are good. There is no real second guessing a dream story idea.
I can rewind my dreams and rearrange them to my satisfaction.  A nice little talent, if I do say so myself.

Sometimes I rewind and re-dream things over and over again until I am sure I’ll remember it when I wake up.

I don’t think I dream Works in Progress.  At least if I do, I don’t remember it.

I find ideas everywhere. I keep them in my head.  I tinker with them and gnaw on them.  See if they won’t fall apart under pressure. If I am satisfied, I write them down on paper.  Which in my mind is like setting them in stone.  They are real. Unchangeable.

But we all know how NaNoWriMo chips away at “unchangeable”.