Sometimes the inspiration for a story isn't a grand idea. Sometimes it doesn't jump out. Sometimes it isn't even a fully formed idea at all.

Sometimes, it's a whisper.

It's the whisper that tickles your ear when you feel a gentle summer breeze on your cheek. The whisper when you spot a homeless man standing in day old slush, the soles of his shoes worn so that his toes poke through. Maybe it's the cashier who has a tattoo of a butterfly across her wrist. Or the sight of flush-faced children abandoning their baseball game to run to the ice cream truck.

It's all of these things. The little nudges, the extraordinary in the ordinary. The stories that touch us must touch us because they have a center of truth. They contain these little everyday occurrences, the little things that what make a life what it is.

That isn't to exclude genre fiction like fantasy or sci fi. Because these contain these moments too. Moments of living and loving and hating.

Next time you are short on ideas, take some time to observe. Go for a walk and bring a notepad with you. Record scents, tastes, smells, sights. You can go back and do whatever with them you will but for the moment simply listen. You may be surprised at what you discover.