At 6:30 a.m. and with the assistance of only one cup of coffee, I wouldn't characterize myself as terribly "on," intellectually speaking. 

But it's at this point on typically hectic mornings that my 3-year-old has begun asking me to tell her stories.  Not from books, but from my head.

"Talk to me about Rainey, Mama," she suggests between slurps of her milk and cereal, "and her cat!"

Rainey is a character I made up a hundred years ago, it feels like, on some traumatically drowsy night when my daughter wouldn't fall asleep on her own. 

As far as I could recall this morning, when my child asked me to retell the tale, Rainey and her family moved to a new neighborhood and now live in a big old house.  Rainey takes walks by herself and discovers an eerie, abandoned shack down the street where a family of talking squirrels hang out.  Nothing terribly compelling there.

That's about all I could remember today.  There was no cat.

But as any aspiring supermom would do, I stepped up to the plate to weave a tale of magical mishaps, right there on the spot as I sipped coffee #2. 

Over the next two and a half minutes, my 3-year-old and my 21-month-old sat enraptured by the tale of Rainey's overfed cat, Juicebox. 

The fat Tabby, poking around the house curiously while the family is away for the day, discovers a secret tunnel in the basement that leads to a magical party room, complete with blinky lights, a trampoline, swings hanging from the ceiling for kids to play on, waterslides, and mounds of candy just waiting to be devoured.

Not bad for off-the-cuff.  At least my kids thought it was pretty amazing -- especially when embellished by goofy voices and sound effects. 

Tomorrow's breakfast story time will reveal how the made-up kids (Rainey and, of course, her little brother, Stormy) will get to visit the party room with Juicebox.  And who knows what'll happen?!

Thank you, dear daughter, for the morning flash fiction writing workout!

If I could find a way to type while I'm in the shower, I could conquer the world.

I don't know if it's because I'm freshly abuzz after my first morning coffee or if it's from the hot steam that loosens up my joints, but there's something magical that happens for me in the shower, of all places, that generates BIG IDEAS to come bursting out of my creative cortex.

And if I don't leap out, dry myself off, and immediately lunge for the pen and notepad, those incredible plans seem to fizzle into a puddle of lost, forgotten dreams.

My left brain kicks in and takes charge as I get myself dressed and tend to the morning chores -- changing baby diapers, answering my 3-year-old's "Mama, why..." questions relentlessly, swapping work schedules with my husband, and scraping up flacid, milk-soaked Rice Krispies off the kitchen floor.

You'll never be able to pull that off, chides my more-practical psyche.

Come to think of it, that's a pretty unrealistic idea, it warns.

Better come up with a Plan B, it says.

Oh, how many life-changing ideas could have changed the world for the better -- but didn't!

Now's the time to change all that.

It's high time I start taking those shower stall flashes of genius and make something real out of them.  I'm publicly announcing -- proclaiming! -- that from now on, I will take serious steps to at least document those *unrealistic* dreams so that I can give them a place to live and, perhaps down the road, give them the chance to take shape into something *real*.  

Where and when do you have your most igniting flashes of genius and inspiration?  I'd love to hear how you lasso them to keep them alive!