Because I am on a short hiatus from writing so that I can pack/move, the story ideas are running rampant in my head. I have to admit that while I’m working on a project, I don’t really get many ideas for the next project. However, a combination of memories I’ve been sharing, and stories my husband’s parents’ friends have been telling us as we visit to say “see ya later” before we move, are taking root in my brain and some are nudging at me to incorporate them into some sort of writing.

I heard a great story yesterday from my husband’s father’s best friend. The setting was a filling station in rural Tennessee, the year was 1948. His summer job was to work the graveyard shift (he was sixteen) and across the street was a dive bar. Sometimes his stories are hard to follow (due to Southernisms I still can’t quite wrap my brain around) but the gist of it was that someone had run out of the bar and there were two men chasing him. He ran in the front door of the filling station and out the back, but just before he got through the back door, the men chasing him, got hold of his coat and he came right out of it. The pockets were full of change (which might be why they were chasing him…I’m not really clear on this point) and they swung the coat at him and whacked him hard with it and all the change in his pockets went scattering. I think he went down too. And they must’ve dragged him off, but whatever they did, the change was left everywhere. Our friend told us that he and his cousin got rich that night collecting coins from every crevice and corner of the station.

My first thought was how can I use that in a story. It’s very visual, right? But the problem is, you really have to set it in 1948 for them to get rich off the change. With inflation, they’d have to hit him with bricks of twenties and frankly, twenty dollar bills aren’t going to either bring him down, or give you the visual effect of that story. So that left me thinking about how I’d have to write something historical and I realized that it was just a nice story, but probably not one I can use. Maybe one of y’all who write historical fiction can steal it from me now. I won’t be using it.

Heard any good stories lately?