Occasionally I'll be asked where I come up with ideas for my fiction. One place that's always good is the newspaper, and what I read today is so good I have to share. And let me add - I am not making this stuff up. Okay, so here's the gist of it. It seems that Youngstown, Ohio has been experiencing numerous earthquakes lately, topped off by one registering 4.0 on the richter scale yesterday. According to the experts, these earthquakes are a result of truly gargantuan amounts of waste fluid from fracking being forced deep underground. For those of you unfamiliar with fracking, it's a process in which natural gas is forced out of shale deposits by pumping vast quantities of fluid underground and literally forcing the gas to the surface. There has been a vigorous debate about the safety of fracking due to numerous incidents of groundwater contamination. This contamination has resulted in people being able to turn on their faucet and light their water on fire. With the addition of earthquakes now being added to the dangers of fracking, I think there's a great opportunity to write a sci-fi, environmental thriller here, something along the lines of a story Michael Chrichton would write if he were still alive. The only problem is, I'm not talented enough to write something this outlandish and make it seem real, even though it's the God's honest truth.
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