I am often asked how I come up with my story ideas. Sometimes I just get an idea from everyday life. A news item or something I heard that resonated.

Sometimes I come up empty. Like this weekend. When that happens I have to troll for an idea. I often use a technique I call Google Roulette. That is where I prime the search engine with a word or phrase and spin the wheel to see what comes up. I will often start with a definition of the prompt. The process goes something like this:

FULL (adj.) Old English full "containing all that can be received; having eaten or drunk to repletion.

(adv) Old English ful "very, fully, entirely, completely" and was common in Middle English (full well, full many, etc.); sense of "quite, exactly, precisely" is from 1580s. Full moon, one with its whole disc illuminated, was Old English fulles monan.

full (v.) "to tread or beat cloth to cleanse or thicken it," late 14c., from Old French foler, fouler "trample on, press," from Latin fullo "fuller, launderer," also a kind of beetle (kafer).

Volkswagon also made a Beetle. Officially known as the 'Volkswagon type 1'.

It was full with five people. At University, we drove one with ten people loaded in but to be fair, we had the sunroof open.

Ten people applied to fill an empty slot on the Kanawha County board of commissioners (as reported last January 31st, 2017 by the Charleston Gazette-Mail).

The Charleston Gazette-Mail apparently lets you read ten articles, in full, online before you have to pay. I have not filled my quota. I stopped reading at article three because... well, frankly, I was getting distracted and needed to focus on filling this page.

That was Charleston, West Virginia, by the way. There are twenty five towns or townships named Charleston in the US with a few scattered countys, train stations, and even ships sharing the name. Check Wikipedia. It is chock-full of Charlestons. There is even one in Australia.

In case you are interested, Charleston, Australia is on the Onkaparinga Valley Road. If you don't care, skip the next five lines. It is near to the source of the River Onkaparinga and boasts a (somewhat tenuous) connection to Slim Dusty. It seems the Charleston Hotel (yes we are still in Charleston, Australia. Stay with me here); the Charleston Hotel was featured in a car advertisement based on Slim Dusty's famous song "Answer to a Pub With No Beer". The town boasts a population of about 520 people and I don't know if that fills it up or if they have room for a few more.

I move on from Charleston but started thinking about Onkaparinga. How can you read that and not wonder? I found out that typing Onkaparinga into Google search fills your page with eight hundred and forty four thousand results. I don't know if all of those references link to Australia but I can tell you the first ten pages do. Try it. You find some great stuff. Here is a sample:

"On the way home I said to Phyllis that I was thinking about starting a Support Group here in the city of Onkaparinga (population 150,000), and she said, well why don't you, so I did."

You can't make this stuff up.

If you have read this far, you no doubt think I am full-on bat-dip crazy. I used to think 'full-on' was a southern word (as in "...sings like a full-on Baptist."). I'll spare you the etymology of the phrase.

Instead, I'll end here. Because, you see, I am full-on empty.