I write fiction (buckets of it these days, in fact, since my work day is about two hours of chaos followed by six hours of dead time) and the question often comes up: “Where do you get your ideas? What inspires you? How can you keep coming up with stuff?”

Are you kidding me? This is EARTH. Something wacky is happening all the time, everywhere, in every country, to everyone possible. Ideas flow from reality like snot from a toddler.

For example, I initially misread this brief headline on MSNBC a couple of times: DOG SAVES WOMAN ATTACKED BY KANGAROO. I kept going “What? What?”

But you can see how that could happen, right? It could have been practically any permutation of attack and salvation. I mean, it’s Australia, things happen. Ideas:

KANGAROO SAVES WOMAN ATTACKED BY DOG - a woman is outside watering her lawn on the outskirts of a major Australian city and is attacked by a roving pitbull. A passing kangaroo, attracted by the sound of the running water, hops across the road and coincidentally frightens the dog off.

WOMAN SAVES DOG ATTACKED BY KANGAROO - it’s rutting season in the outback, a small dog has gotten tangled in a fight between two male kangaroos. A woman driving by in her ATV spots the white bundle and pulls over, scares off the rutting ‘roos with the sound of the engine, and rushes the dog to a vet.

KANGAROO SAVES DOG, ATTACKS WOMAN - a kangaroo has gotten inexplicably attached to a domestic dog owned by an abusive alcoholic. One day, it hops the fence to play with its little friend and discovers the woman beating on her pet. The kangaroo kicks the woman out of the way and leaves with the dog in its pouch.

KANGAROO ATTACKS SAVED DOG-WOMAN - a Mexican circus is lost near a rural Australian city and pulls over to ask for directions. They send the dog-woman because she’s the only one who speaks English and because, as a born-again Christian, she wants to convince the residents to accept Jesus as the one true savior. As she enters someone’s yard, she is savaged by their trained attack kangaroo while the circus looks on in horror.