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Very little of my life depends on chance. Most major things that have happened to me have been pretty deliberate. I know people who have stories like "If I hadn't missed my bus, I wouldn't have met the woman who is now my wife!" or "If I hadn't stopped to talk to somebody on the way to my car, I would have been in the parking lot when that live wire came down." I think chance decides not to mess with me where the big stuff is concerned because she knows it might drive my little Capricornish brain crazy. But she flirts with me quite a bit as far as story ideas go.

The perennial writing question is "Where do you get your ideas?" Some people have good answers for that, but I don't. The last few ideas I've had, for example, came while reading an online journal, trimming plants in my garden, walking around with my friends after we saw a movie together, and waking up and recalling a dream. Perhaps when my brain gets to that happy place, whatever I happen to be doing transmutes into a story idea. If I had been doing dishes instead of playing in the garden, what kind of story would I have come up with? Would I have formulated an idea at all? It's all up to chance at that point.