Any writer will tell you that there’s no shortage of ideas out there. Book ideas lurk around every corner, waiting to pounce. Short story ideas hide under your bed, ready to grab you by the ankle. There is no avoiding them.
However, sometimes you are approached for something specific, and while you may have more ideas than you know what to with, you may not have anything ready to go.
Sometimes there is nothing more frustrating than agreeing to join a project only to find that the ol’ idea well has gone dry. People are counting on you, there are deadlines, and you’re staring at a blank page, thinking about how much you would really like some root beer but how you are not allowed any until you come up with a viable idea that does not include mutant venomous wolves or tap-dancing zombie ninjas, and nothing comes. (Except perhaps mutant venomous zombie ninja wolves. Tap-dancing optional.)
You vacuum the entire house. You replant your flower beds. You repaint your kitchen, all the while hoping, praying, that something suitable will magically appear in your head.
Sometimes it does. Those times are excellent.
Other times it does not, and eventually you have to face the fact that divine inspiration is not going to strike this time. Then you sit down, look at the requirements of the project, and pick out bits and pieces of things related that appeal to you. You swirl them around for awhile, looking for some inkling of a plot and then, finally, you get enough of an idea that you can move forward.
You write your story, the project continues, and everything lives happily ever after.
Until the next project.