Creative inspiration can come from unexpected places...
you just have to keep your eyes open...
The creative muse is like either a fairy or a bumblebee in flight, skipping around, alighting here and there. Sometimes it lands lightly on your head bringing with it a shimmer of fairy dust and a sparkling cloud of inspiration. And sometimes it just has to sting you in the face to make you actually NOTICE that - HELLO an idea has arrived!
You just have to pay attention, and use what you get, when you get it. And for criminey's sake write it down!
I got an idea for a book on vacation in Mexico as I looked at a street hawker's jewelry table set up haphazardly in the square outside a museum. I looked back at the museum and suddenly got the fairy type of thought of "What if..." (No spoilers here and please don't steal my idea either.) Despite the sweat rolling down my back in those horrible, irritating little rivulets, I stood still and let the idea percolate a little bit. I bought a bracelet that day, and it reminds me of that idea. (Which you may see in a book some day.)
When I was first writing The Secret Key of Pythagorum, I never expected for Savaric to have a sidekick.
But there I was, minding my own business, typing away one day and down the road came Elias. I looked over my shoulder at him as I clicked away, wondering who he was. Seriously. I literally glanced over at him from Savaric's viewpoint. It felt like he walked on his own into my book. And then he turned out to be such a brassy little guy with so much character, who was I to deny his place in the book? Now I can't imagine the book without him.
I might sound a little wacko myself, but there you go. The life of a creative is like that.
I also get ideas from my other creative outlets or from other artists. As a photographer, I can get inspiration from artists who use different mediums and seeing their methods and thought processes. I created a multi-media collage that was a scene from a story, based on seeing a multi-media artist do a demonstration of her work. It was fun to do, too!
Moral to the story - inspiration comes in all forms - dreams, day dreams, a kernel of history, everyday life, a scene from a movie or a book. Just pay attention and smack that fairy into the pages of a journal before she gets away!