When Life is Fodder for Your Writing

I have been blocked for a year without any excuse. In my job as a shuttle driver for a local car dealership I have had more than enough fodder for my writing; characters, story plots, situations, etc. I haven’t acted on any of them, but I did have sense enough to make notes.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought, “Well, THAT will make into a book!” I find that the personalities that population my stories are very shaped by encounters with real people; usually being layered by the smile of one, the eyes of another, the latent passive-aggressive tendencies of the office bully or the pure magnetism of a male I’ve run into. So I relentlessly make notes on paper or my smartphone, simple jotted memories.

Something that seems to come to me is titles. I have a current list of 78, and some may serve as novel names and others as jumping off points for a short story. Often a title will spark or encapsulate an idea for me better than anything else.

So, now that I am no longer afraid of my laptop, I’m busy perusing the lists and notes; ideas popping all over the place.

How do you capture life for future fiction?