Does your mind never quit?
Umm. The answer is no. Or not often. Even when I'm asleep, my mind is processing.
Last week Jasmine was telling me about an incident that happened where she works. It's an indoor amusement facility, and someone had brought a gun in. He was carrying legally, but you can't take a gun on rides, and you can't stick them in a cubby!!!! He peacefully took it to his car. No problem.
But my brain started going into overdrive with ideas. Jasmine knows the look. Thus the question, "Does your mind never quit?"
Because I was thinking: What if someone brought a gun into the facility planning to shoot it? What if that someone was a young teen? A young teen who hadn't been invited to the birthday party that was taking place? What if he had mental health issues that weren't being treated, and not being invited to the party was enough to set him off? What if he waited until they were in the laser tag arena and then opened fire?
My mind was off and running, and I was typing away and firing questions at Jasmine, "Do you think a mentally disturbed young teen would open fire on the birthday party?" "Do you think he might do it in the laser tag room?" "Describe that to me."
And she did. Because she knows that this is how my brain works. Why I have a computer full of ideas.
And that's why as I looked around the skydive facility today and studied faces, she knew my mind was off and running. "Look at that skydiver. Is he the hero or a bad guy?"
"Mom..."
"No, really, look at those little planes. One could make a rescue in the middle of nowhere. Or kidnap someone. Maybe someone swoops in to the rescue."
She knows how I think. Just as I know that after something either very positive or very negative she processes by walking--and I process with my writing.
The up side is, this is how I get my story ideas. I may not be able to answer the question "How do you get your ideas?" because I often can't pinpoint how the idea truly started. It may be something I saw, something I heard or overheard, something I experienced or imagined a character experiencing.
In all this, Jasmine and I make a great team. She gets me and I get her.
I took her skydiving for her birthday. She was on a literal high--14,000 feet--and the figurative high lasted long after. And we found a park and walked. And went shopping. I was in the moment, yet ideas were coming so fast I was jotting them on index cards so I wouldn't forget.
Tell me I'm not alone.