Where do you get your ideas?

          Some people have light bulbs go off over their heads when they get an idea. (This guy obviously gets ideas his own way. Either he thinks with his mouth or his idea bulb slipped!)
           A lot of people ask about how to get ideas for writing books. The magic element for me is to write down anything that's interesting, anything that makes me say, "Hm" or anything that makes me smile. I could write down ideas every day if I open up my mind to it.
          I once saw a little girl in a red plaid dress standing by the road holding the leash of a little black Scottie dog. Click! Watching teenagers run through a crowd spurred an idea for my first novel where a woman is being chased through a crowd, running for her life, but no one know it. Click! Driving past the cemetery and an open grave brought to mind stories of the olden days when people walking in the dark would fall into graves and have to wait until morning to get help getting out. But what if someone fell into a grave and disappeared? Click! People walking in body boxes down Main Street with only their feet showing. Click! A newspaper article about a white man and woman who walked out of the African jungle, unable to speak English and obviously comfortable foraging for food in the native terrain. Click!
          The thing is, the ideas you have are for you, your personality, your writing ability. I recently undertook to "ride the wave" on someone else's successful idea (with the author's permission... I didn't legally need the author's permission, but when someone suggested that author might be mad at me, I talked to said author who told me to "Go for it!")  Anyway, to my surprise, I've found it a little harder to write on this borrowed idea. Interesting.
          What is your latest, greatest idea?