If you ever wanted to know what goes through a writer's head when a story idea comes together, it's this mess. This collage is a combination of world building blog post (top left), a short story I started last year but dropped because I didn't know what to do with it (same picture), the constellations in my world's sky, a random plot bunny in my note app that had no story attached to it (bottom left), and a writing game question by my writing-partner-in-crime (top right) that gave me the "ah ha!" moment of realization this morning. I grabbed my notebook and jotted down plot points for that realization-turned-story (bottom right), combining all these ideas together.

This is how my brain tends to work. I'll put a story aside for a bit, then whatever had me stuck becomes clear later because I was working on world building or random ideas in the meantime.

In this case the ideas combined as:
-A holiday in the culture that's based around visiting family
-The first page and a half of a story where my characters hate said holiday because they don't have family, so they decide that they want to have a vacation instead
-The constellations in my fantasy world, a character obsessed with astronomy, and another character who's a cartographer
-A plot bunny involving a happy Firedrake and silliness
-A question game about what my characters would do if they were trapped on a deserted island

After almost a year, I just might be able to finish that partially-written short story! Now if only I could figure out the solution to the other four or five short stories I have started/planned...

~Meri