As a writer, you can find ideas everywhere, from the sound of garbage trucks that wake you up, the little girl talking to her father in a line at the bank, the sighting of an unusual bird that landed on your window ledge, the little leaguers warming the bench by talking about their Pokémon cards, the pickup basketball game across the street you catch between passing cars and trucks, the tattoo "Regina Only Yesterday" on the arm of the woman who serves you your coffee in a favorite café, a colorful drawing of the solar system by a first grader, the warning labels on a cigarette package, the contrasting backgrounds of Zoom meeting attendees, the sudden wistfulness of a song you're hearing for the first time in years, the tired looks on the faces of train commuters, the dents and scratches on a brand new parked car, the changing color of sand as the day turns to dusk, the lone leaf dancing down the gutter, the homeless woman who refuses your offer of a dollar, the juxtaposition of you eating delicious dinner while watching state-sponsored atrocities on television, a billboard advertising an exotic vacation during a global virus lockdown, the interaction between two dogs meeting each other for the first time, the abundance of ripe lemons falling from their tree in a neighbor's backyard, the radiant colors of profanities spray-painted on a tenement alleyway, a skillful salsa dance between an elderly woman and a teenaged boy, a reckoning about your mother you never had until today, a deaf woman typing her menu choices on a smartphone for a waiter in a restaurant, a furious battle between a mockingbird and squirrel over a nest in a tree hollow, a couple sitting on a park bench in a light September afternoon rain sharing an ice cream cone, the clothing in a children's store window, the connection between a biblical passage and a movie scene, the taste of a favorite food with one intentionally added or missing ingredient, the old man who always occupies the same chair at the public library, a typo on a sign in a restroom, an email from a scammer promising you $137,000, a robocall threatening to shut off your electricity, the letter you receive from a friend you haven't heard from in 30 years telling you she has stage 5 cancer, the worn condition of the only book you've ever read three times, a friend's ostentatious signature, another friend's uncharacteristically shabby appearance, a wedding photograph of your parents, dandelions growing in cracks on the concrete pavement, the hairs sticking out of your boss's nose and ears, the muffled argument you can't make out from the neighbors, the lost sock you found months after you disposed of the other one.
I'll stop at 40 examples for now (I could have gone until 40,000) in the hope that you get my point about finding ideas anywhere.
