I always look for sharp edges and corners, things I could open my head up on, but part of the problem with unreal space is that what you see is not always there. I figure that's not a problem, not really. I don't care if other people see me carefully skirting empty space. I don't worry about looking like an idiot, and the unreal space vision is marked clearly on my identification, which usually keep away the cops and bughouse people, both the real and the unreal ones. The bigger problem is when something keeps me from seeing what *is* really there. It's not much of an issue, because people who don't see what's there tend to die a lot younger than those who see what isn't, but I'm one of the ten percent who have a mild enough bit of it that they survive. Also, my parents were the most paranoid people around. You've never seen childproofing until you've seen what they did to our house until I was twenty-five and had passed all the tests and vocational training and was officially emancipated and moved into a government apartment. I nearly died that first night, walking into a bathtub and slipping and hitting my head. Sheer luck I didn't drown while I was unconscious. I didn't tell my parents that part, but--


Inspiration: Thinking about childproofing.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: I'm not sure where this one would go, but I felt myself getting more drawn in and interested the longer I wrote. Good character, if nothing else.

She kept the phantom limb as a little reminder of a lot less pain. When somebody eyed the odd bulge under her sleeve oddly, or stared at the blatantly artificial hand, she'd move the phantom a little, and feel the twinge, and be grateful for her new arm. To hell with the starers. That was why she didn't go ahead and get a less useful but more natural looking arm, one with fake skin and fingernails and other such things. It would be giving in. It would be saying, "Oh, yes, my natural arm would have been so much better, I am ashamed of what I had to do to get my job." And she wasn't. And it hadn't been. And--

Inspiration: "Setback" - Fluke
Story Potential: High?
Notes: There's not a whole lot of story in this, but the character and the setting are compelling.

The net came down on his hand with all the force that a full bunch of fish could muster. He screamed, but it was lost in the swearing of the men above when one of them dropped his side of the net and the full torrent of fish poured out onto the deck beside the ship. He screamed again, as he felt the serrated scales of the fish slash open his hand as they poured past it, crushing it and opening up the flesh. In one painful moment, he went from visiting the docks in hopes of becoming a sailor, to being cursed to never sail again. It was all he'd done, all his family had done, but--

Inspiration: Talk about some sports figure who got his hand tangled in a net.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: And he became very bitter until, late in life, some massive realization opened up his life and made it worthwhile again. The end. See ya on the bestseller list!