Over the years I’ve been fascinated by history and by the roles members of my family may have played in such events.

One very clearcut situation relates to my grandfather Earl C. Pound and the role he played in the development of the Imperial Valley in California. He arrived when it was a desolate wilderness and led the development, including the building of the Hoover Dam, making it one of the most productive agricultural areas in California.

Of course he wasn’t the only driver in the area but his story makes a fascinating look at how a few strong individuals can make an incredible difference.

Read his story at http://www.365storiesinayear.com .

6S8EJBAFBT34

It’s been a while since I posted here. However, you should head over to  the 365 Stories in a Year blog and read about one of the most interesting cemeteries I’ve ever seen. It’s the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, Russia, where thousands of the elite of the Soviet Union were buried.

These were supposedly proletarian men and women yet they created some of the most massive monuments I’ve very seen in a cemetery and I’ve seen some big ones.

If you ever visit it, you will find politicians, artists, writers, fools, brilliant men, some of the most horrible leaders of history, and some of the most revered. It is a fascinating mix.

And you won’t find Joseph Stalin. He’s buried behind Lenin’s tomb on Red Square with all but one of the Soviet Union’s leaders. To see who isn’t there, read the story.

It’s the duty of writers to complain about the weather, no matter where they live. Since I’m in Southern California, where the weather is good year round, we usually don’t have much to complain about. It’s kind of nice to have a few drizzles to mention in addition to sunshine.

Today’s story (365 Stories in a Year blog) is about the weather. It’s as much a rant as a story but I think it qualifies as a story because it is about an actual event, water falling from the sky, with consequences. Minor, but still consequences.

This story (365 Stories in a Year blog) is about one of the more spectacular Orange County events, the Newport Beach Boat Parade, which unfortunately fizzled Saturday night.

Usually the parade has hundreds of beautifully decorated boats. This story tells you what happened to the parade this year.

This is a good example of using a very current event as the basis for a story. Just because it was recent doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting.

This story (365 Stories in a Year blog) is about the last college class I had to pass in order to graduate and how it almost didn’t happen.

The idea was one I’ve had before but never took the time to write. It is instructive because it does remind us that the most important part of college is learning how to find information, not memorizing it.

This story (365 Stories in a Year blog) shows how mentorship works to build expertise and create success. I am a great believer in having a mentor since most of my success has come from what I learned from my mentors over the years.

The idea came from thinking about the mentors I’ve had but I set it in a bowling alley since I just recently went bowling after many years away from the game. I had done some bowling in college but very little since. When the first few rolls went badly, I remembered back to the class in bowling I took at UC Riverside and made a few adjustments in my position on the lane. Suddenly the words of my teacher/mentor echoed to the present day and my accuracy increased tenfold

It’s amazing what a mentor can do for you.

It is often said that sometimes the hardest buildings to get into are also the easiest. In this story, (365 Stories in a Year blog) I tell you how my wife and I walked right into the secure campus of Moscow State University ten years ago. (This is in Russia, not Idaho.)

It was a fascinating experience that emphasizes that even the best security has holes you could drive a truck through if you just know where to look.

A lot of people in this world are lonely. They exist and go about their daily chores but mix very little with the rest of humanity. This story (365 Stories in a Year blog) is about one such boy at an indeterminate time and place who wanted more from his life and seemed unable to get it.

You’ve probably met people like this young boy. Did you say hi or did you just ignore him? Think about what a simple acknowledgement might have meant so such a child.

This story (365 Stories in a Year blog) is about the day the bees moved into our carport when I was young. It was much worse than it sounds. There must have been thousands of them and they occupied an area 10 feet wide by five feet high.

My Dad managed to get rid of the bees and all the honey they left behind but it was a harrowing few days.

No particular lesson here. This is one of those stories we remember from childhood that made an impression that’s still there many decades later.

I realized as I started this post that I haven’t said much about where the ideas for my stories come from. There are now 110 of them so there must be a pretty good source of ideas. I also realized when I was talking a man a few days ago about story writing that most people have no idea where stories come from.

One reason I haven’t said much about ideas is that there wasn’t much to say. Most of my ideas just come up on command and I write the story. Today’s story (365 Stories in a Year blog) was like that. I needed to write a story and was thinking about what true story I could do tonight when the idea of a wet highway popped up followed by the memory of the almost car accident it caused.

This reinforced the truth that story ideas are everywhere and that our minds are full of them if we just allow them to come out. Anyone old enough to write has lived enough to have hundreds of true stories just waiting to be told. Beyond personal incidents are things we care about a lot and beyond them are fictional tales we’ve always wanted to tell.

These ideas float around in our minds every moment we are conscious. We simply don’t recognize them as story possibilities. If you want to write stories and have no idea what to write about just listen for a while and pick one of the ideas that emerges.

I assure you there will be many. Happy writing!