That guy at the bus stop who gave me a plot twist idea

Last Thursday I was waiting for the 27 bus on Main Street and this older dude starts telling me about how he quit his corporate job to raise snails for escargot. He said 'people think snails are slow, but they taught me how to speed up my life.' That random conversation gave me a whole story concept about a character who learns patience from the weirdest source. Has anyone else pulled a full story idea from a stranger's random life story?

2 comments

2 Comments

river32011d ago

3 minutes into that story I was already trying to figure out what kind of person learns life lessons from snails. Did he say anything else about what exactly the snails taught him about speeding things up?

blair59711d ago

Jumping right in - @river320, I totally agree with you. That snail story had me scratching my head too. I had a similar thing happen with my garden last summer, watching these little dudes just inch along the fence. They taught me that rushing into things usually just makes a mess, like when I tried to repaint my shed in one afternoon and got paint all over myself. Actually, snails showed me that taking it slow and steady is the way to get stuff done right, which is kind of funny since I usually want everything done yesterday. So yeah, whoever that guy was, he was onto something weird but real.