Of all the questions asked of fiction writers, the one most common is: Where do you get your ideas? It is a crucial question that goes to the heart of the storyteller’s art. One might generalize and assert that it comes from an amalgam of one’s life’s experiences, stories told by others, books read, movies seen, dreams and fantasies, and the molten mix in the cauldron of one’s imagination. This is one writer’s attempt to pinpoint the spark that ignited the idea that became the story and its aftermath.

As a confirmed skeptic I do not believe in anything that is outside the orbit of logical reality. I eschew anything new age, strange repetitive rituals and self-professed gurus who allege they have “the answer” and demand obedience. I do not believe in anything in the supernatural, realm and that includes fantasy, Fairy Godmothers, angels, superheroes, weird conspiracy theories, miracles, doppelgangers, Dybbuks, and the thousand other mysterious ideas and imagined events that fall into this genre.

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Read more: Second in a series: How I got the idea for my novel MADELINE’S MIRACLES

If Barack Obama loses his bid to become President of the United States, he can trace the beginning of his demise to his campaign’s boneheaded idea to speak in Berlin. While on the surface it might seem to offer a resounding image of popularity and approval, the historical memory it provokes and the powerful and sinister images it recalls to living memory is an ominous reminder of events that continue to resonate among older Americans.

The spirited young Obama people must have huddled around the planning table blinded with the brilliance of the idea that their candidate’s speaking in Berlin would trigger memories of President’s Kennedy’s stirring remark that gave hope to the beleaguered people of that surrounded city, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” and would offer the double reminder of Ronald Reagan’s “Tear down that wall” speech a few years later.

They must have reveled in the creativity of such a ploy that, they believed, would anoint Obama to be the heir apparent to such illustrious forebears.…

Read more: Obama in Berlin

Oblique and often innocent questions can reveal character traits that I have found useful in my fiction. I ask the following question often since it reveals the level of a person’s expectations.

What is your number?

This means what is your comfort zone in terms of your net worth. I have asked this question of people of all economic categories from the very poor to the super rich. Obviously those with the least net worth answer that their level of satisfaction would be a million dollars in liquid assets.

As we ride up the scale, most people think five million is more than adequate. Sophisticated and well-off people who have reached the five to ten million mark will set their comfort zone between fifteen and twenty million.

A large category places the comfort level at 25 million, but this answer comes from people who have attained that figure. Of course, for many people to whom I have posed this question, their answer has been “The sky’s the limit.”

Usually they follow this up by saying that extreme wealth is more a report card of achievement than a comfort zone.…

Read more: The Loaded Query