Writers are natural stalkers. Sure, it’s a little creepy but that’s what makes it fun–I mean, er… Educational. Productive. Absolutely not criminal. Think of it like being on a safari or bird-watching. See? Totally harmless.

It has been said that a story isn’t just an art. It’s a wild beast that we must hunt down, capture and make a meal of, if we must. Figuratively, of course. We’re not complete psychopaths, are we? Are we???

Most creative individuals are in the habit of observing the people and things around us. We’re not even usually conscious of what we’re doing. We study people, the way events unfold. We do this intently and unthinkingly. We become avid spectators in an arena that offers up infinite degrees of wonderment.

Humans make for irresistible subjects, to begin with. They’re mystifying and amusing. They are self-contradictory and xenophobic oddities. They say they’re wrong and they say that they’re right, believing both equally. They embody a multitude of mysteries that inspire an incredible array of possibilities.

Every unsuspecting passerby becomes fodder for our fictional machinations. They are our hapless accomplices in an endless parade of imaginary atrocities and epic deeds of heroism. We find a wealth of inspiration in the mundane. With no solid basis upon which to build our suppositions, we psychoanalyze complete strangers and invent convoluted histories and personalities for them.

Little does the kindly old lady walking her chihuahua down the street know, that she is destined to be– in some form or another–the dastardly culprit who devours the scrawny rebel zipping by on his skateboard. This will be at the behest of her four-legged Little Precious, who happens to be the Devil… who happens to be an extra-terrestrial entity that crash-landed on earth eight billion years ago.

No way am I going to write that. It’s just silly. Really. Except for the part about chihuahuas being the demonic incarnation of aliens. That, I have always suspected.