Getting your Inspiration from the Stain in the Glass ,,.

My bestest friend is getting married in three days - three days! (I know, I crissross on WTF road from OMGOMGOMG to Oh wow.).

And she's Catholic.

Which means I get to spend an hour or so in Church - which recalls me to that time period in my life when this was a regular Sunday thing - back when my grandparents refused to understand "sleep in" on Sundays (or Saturdays, they were cruel). At the time, in my itchy wool socks and pinchy shoes, I was bored out of my skull at these things. It didn't help that every Portuguese woman (because yes, we had to go to the Portuguese mass) over the age of fifty has a hereditary disease that both ruins any vocal chords and gives you an urge to sing - oh yes, dear readers, it was loud, high-pitched and led to flinching/wincing/crying from all children/people who didn't bring earplugs. It still does, actually - I was at another wedding last year or so, and my ears felt like they were bleeding ...

At those times, through my instinctive survival skills, I discovered I could look up at the pretty stained glass windows that adorned the Church and imagine myself away. Far away, usually.

And there were born my stories.

Now, I write and have always written about the supernatural (witches, wolves and spirits - oh my!), teenagers gone wild (babies and drugs and booze - oh yes!), medieval princesses who kick ass and in general, how we say ... not Jesus-inspired things. You would think it would be sacrilegious for me to even think about these things, let alone actively fabricate stories that would be embellished and lengthened through more visits to the Church on subsequent weekends. I thought up my wolves while rammed between my mother (who pinches when and if you dare move) and my sister who was picking at her nails, and I looked up and something about the awesome forest green around ST. Francis' head made me think of night time woods and grey wolves. And suddenly a character was formed, and I had to create a story for her, right? To have done otherwise would be cruel ...

The point is this: inspiration comes in a flash sometimes in the weirdest of places, and maybe that's a good thing.

Where do you get your inspiration from?