"Where do you get your ideas?"

That's a question I hear quite often from readers and friends, and it's a fair question. Instead of answering it on a respond, I thought it would make a good topic for an article itself. I can reference it later when the question comes up.

To answer simply, for the first 30 plus years of my life, I wasn't very focused. I have always had a passion to write, and that passion was driven by a list of writers so long it would be a discredit to many to even TRY to list them here, as I would almost certainly omit some. These writers took me to places I'd never been caused me to see things I would otherwise never see, and plowed the fertile ground of my mind and seeded it with countless ideas. As I grew, I moved around a lot, and despite a HIGHLY dysfunctional upbringing, still managed to see incredible sights. By the time I was 18, I'd drank from the top of a waterfall less than 50 feet away from the 100 plus foot drop, I'd been in caves, to Mexico, to the top of Pikes Peak, and through more than two dozen states. When I turned 18, in my mind, I was continuing the journey, but without a tour guide. I hitchhiked halfway across the country in two days, and the next five years would see me through at least as many states, and expose me to countless more people. One of the highlights of that time was in my move to Wisconsin, where I literally won my rent money at the poker table before moving on from the resort where I had worked for a season.

When I had my children, my journeying didn't stop. They've seen the London Bridge, gathered a railroad spike from Council Bluffs, Iowa, played ball at the "Field of Dreams" (where dad sacrificed his cherished AL ball that had fouled off the bat of one Ken Griffey, Junior into the corn as a sacrifice to the baseball gods for a Yankees loss [it worked!]), swum in the icy cold waters of Lake Superior, been to Washington DC, Gettysburg, and Antietam, been to a music festival at the site where David Grisnam first met Jerry Garcia, to the deserts of western Nevada, and now, to the high plains of Texas. And our journeyings with them won't end there, either.

See, I was raised in a culture where I had reason to expect my life would be short. And I lived as if that would be the case. I wanted to see as much and do as much in this great country as my time on earth would allow. And I've done so. Although I'm a solid and reliable employee, I have worked in factories, in the mines, at an upscale resort, as a salesman for a now defunct football league, at fast food restaurants, and as middle management. I have tasted of the fruits that life has had to offer and I have found them to be sweet. I have given myself such a wide range of experiences that if I really stop to think I can come up with a subject on almost anything, anytime.

So, the best way to come up with a lot of subjects for writing is to give yourself a broad base of experiences from which to work. That's what worked for me.

Or maybe it's just ADD.