I must say, it’s been a very interesting day. Among the many pieces of totally ignorable emails and several valuable messages were three items in French, one sales pitch for a wrinkle cream that would make me look young again, one demand for action, one with the subject line that read “Winner” and one notice of eviction.
French? I can’t read the language, can’t speak it, never, been to France, have never visited any links from that country and know only one person who lives in Paris. (These missives arrive at the rate of three or four a week and, naturally, I direct them to my spam folder where I eventually have to delete them.)
I have to admit, the wrinkle cream sounds interesting but not enticing enough to lure me to the website, which I know will try to give me a “free” sample that will ding my credit card for shipping and handling then likely (if I don’t read the fine print and probably even if I do) will start charging the same card for unwanted shipments for months to come. Besides that, I earned my face and don’t want it to revert to years gone by. It just wouldn’t fit my body. (Of course, were I to follow through and order the “free” sample, my email address would probably be sold to some company that promised to make my body look younger as well.)
The demand for action message (in 18 point type) made me chuckle. The sender insisted that I respond to this second request (There was no first.) and provide information so I could claim my Three Million Six Hundred Thousand British Pounds inheritance. (Note the upper case.) I didn’t read the entire message.
Of course, that inheritance amount made me only partially wealthy because the amount of money coming to me as the result of a promotion held in 2014 was equally tantalizing: €2,000,000.00 Euros ( in US Dollars $2,477,700.69 USD ). Nice of them to put the value in amounts I can understand.
Just think, with all that money, why would I need to write?
And then there was the Notice of Eviction. How fascinating. Of course, it wasn’t fascinating enough for me to open the attachment. (Not to worry; I’m current on my mortgage payment and there’s no chance the city is going to take my place by eminent domain.)
What does this have to do with the Writer Side of Me? Nothing really, except I know that at least one and maybe more of these will eventually become part of a novel or at the very least, the premise of an interesting short story.
And when people ask me (as they often do) where I get my ideas, I no longer have to tell them about the people living inside my head and watch the glazed look of “she’s crazy” take over their faces. I just tell them, “Oh, someone emailed the idea to me.”
Where do your ideas come from?
