Where do story ideas come from?

Have you ever wondered where ideas come from? It is something that I am always hearing that people ask famous writers when they meet them. "Oh I love your work, where do you get your ideas?" I hear a lot of answers to this.

News stories, keeping alert to conversations around you, life experience. I understand that some of Stephen King's story ideas come from nightmares. So, I suppose the only way to say where all ideas come from is "everywhere".

I think that if you take someone that is a born writer and sit them in an empty room they will eventually come up with a story idea. It might be the story of someone that has been locked in an empty room by an insane scientist performing experiments on their ability to stay sane, but they will come up with something.

So, if you have trouble coming up with ideas then you might not be meant to be a writer, or you are not looking at the ideas in the right way. You should be able to have enough ideas that you are tossing the scrawny ones back into the cosmic pool to grow up a little more while you focus on the more well developed ideas that are clamoring for your attention.

So, open yourself up a little and ask yourself - is there some kind of story potential in that single red rose that someone left laying on the table at a local outdoor cafe? (I have already thought of half a dozen ideas.)