How I get my story ideas

Janelle Meraz Hooper

 I’m sometimes asked by non-writers if I ever get story ideas from my dreams? The answer is, sadly, no.

   Early one morning, I was describing my latest wacky dream to my husband as he was getting ready for work.
   It went like this: I was in marketing and had a group of conference attendees at the bottom of the ocean sitting in a circle in school desks.    The water was clear. Little multicolored fish were swimming by…the conference attendees were dressed in their nicest business clothes…when it came time to feed them, I filled the basket of my four-wheeled wheelchair scooter with boxed chicken dinners and drove around and around in a circle on the top of the water dropping boxes to them—but the boxes wouldn’t sink. They just floated on top of the water.

   As my husband was leaving the bedroom, he looked over at me and said, “You know what your problem was don’t you? You were trying to serve chicken. You should have been serving fish!” With that he left. No goodbye kiss, no hug. He knew better than to get too close to me with a line like that!

the end

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