“What made you write about this? Where did you come up with your idea?”

These are common questions writers get asked. The answers are as varied as the writers themselves and the stories they’ve created. Inspiration comes from many sources ranging from a fleeting observation to a lifetime of hard-earned experience.

Since my writing focuses on science fiction, reading science related magazines and articles is a high priority for me and provides a reliable source of inspiration.

I find it fascinating to see what’s been newly learned and to read about research underway that might change how we perceive the world around us and interact with it. Sadly, I can only absorb a limited amount. Keeping up with all of the discoveries and inventions coming out of the scientific community is an impossible challenge. The rate of new information is accellerating at ever increasing speed and quantity.

There was a time when we thought the physical world could be explained with a set number of rules wrapped in a nice little package, but so far it hasn’t happened.  One question just leads to another and another and …. well, you get my point. The unending openness of scientific inquiry can be disconcerting.  Safety lies in what is known, danger lies in what is not

I agree, a neat package would be comforting, (perhaps explaining the appeal of religion, which provides set answers accepted on the basis of unquestioning faith), but the price of believing in a wrapped package without examining the contents, means closing one’s mind and ending the pursuit of knowledge.

Personally, it’s the uncertainty that keeps me awake and alive, ready to get up each morning to see what we might learn next.