The Fount Of Ideas

I think I might be a bit of a weirdo when it comes to where I get some of my ideas for stories. Then again, maybe not. I guess any writer gets their ideas from things that he comes in contact with, and I suppose I do too.

Since I'm a toy collector, I have now, more than once, gotten ideas from toys that I purchased. Not on purpose, but it happened. I mentioned one of them, the Skeleton Crew, in an old post about Halloween decorations that I'd put up.

I picked up these guys, and then they fired up my imagination. I don't know why, but the idea of mercenary soldiers dressed in skeleton outfits like this made me want to explore their story. I started putting together a story about them in my mind. 

I thought it would be fun to add a few more members to the crew, and tried to get a female member for the crew. I made the mistake of buying a Jyn Erso figure from Star Wars Black Series to fill that role. The McFarlane Fortnite figures are seven inch scale. The Black Series are on the short side of six inch scale, so when I put Jyn Erso beside the Skeleton Crew, she looked like a child...and that added a new element to the story.

I tried adding a different armored figure to the group, using a clone trooper from the Black Series. He didn't work either, but the idea of a shorter guy crept in. Then I melded the character with a guy I work with, and the next member of the Skeleton Crew, Murray, was born. 

Interestingly, a little while later I got an Abomination figure (he's a villain of the Incredible Hulk in case you're unaware), and I decided that I wanted him to be in the story too.

So, I invented a way to include it. It further deepened the story.

Okay, so I've gone on and on about the Skeleton Crew, but I'm actually here to talk about Ankletown Station, which is the book I'm working on right now. I've talked exhaustively here on this blog about how I decided that I wanted to make a similar playset to Empire Toy Works' creation called Rotgut Station. My version is presently called Ankletown Station, but will eventually get a different, more legitimate sounding name.

Since making the goal of creating Ankletown Station, I again came up with a story that could be set in this world. Certain characters started taking the appearance of some of the toys that I had or that I wanted. One of the main characters, who is called Dawn right now but that may change, first appeared looking like a Joy Toy figure that I'd like to add to Ankletown Station but probably never will because of how expensive Joy Toy figures are.

Then, the inciting incident occurred, and Dawn revealed a little more about herself. The next thing you know, she was wearing the outfit of a different toy that I had on my shelf.

Yesterday, just for the hell of it, I took a version of that figure that I created the other day by adding the head of Fennec Shand to the body of this armored space warrior and put it on my desk in front of me. It sat there in front of me as I wrote the escape sequence of Dawn and Seth (the other main character), and it inspired me a little bit.

I suppose I'll leave her standing there for a while, and see if that inspiration keeps up. For this post, I thought it would be fun to try to create a picture where it looked like that figure was in the setting of the early chapters, so I searched a background picture and created this.

I need some kind of light to shine on the figure though, because the flash made a reflection you can see in the background. Still a fun picture though.

Anyway, that's all I've got for today.