Do You Require a Catalyst to Write

From where do your stories come? Is it something that you see or hear or read that causes a story idea to crystalize in your head? Do you require a catalyst or a muse?

 

 I ask mainly from curiosity as it would be very interesting to learn of some of the seeds which germinated into some of stories on this and other sites.

But I also raise this question because it appears that I do need such a seed. For years I have had stories in my head, ones with fully flushed out characters and many plot points (often including the end), yet was never able to get them much beyond started. I find it so difficult to connect the different plot points, because they have spent so much rambling about in my head so that I instinctively think of them as the good parts. And I want to get to the good parts, so I cannot focus on the necessary glue to join it all together.

Then I came upon a picture on the good ole intrarweb and it served as a frame that I could feel in. And I found it so much easier to write a story about that picture, even though it soon jumped outside that frame become its very own picture of words. I will find it interesting to see if catalysts will continue to help me take stories out of my mind and put them to word processor.