Beginning tomorrow at 12PM EDT / 9AM PDT (U.S.) and each day in April at the same time, I will be posting “A Story Idea Each Day for a Month.” Why this insanity? Because ideas and story concepts are the lifeblood of Hollywood and for screenwriters our stock-in-trade. Therefore you need to be generating ideas. A lot of them. Always.

What I’ve done is pull news items from the last few months that I thought had something in them — either a kernel of an idea or a fully formed concept.

I’ll post the core element of the news item, then some thoughts on how and where to take the story, but after that, you can do what you want with them.

Why everyday? Because if you have an aptitude for it, I humbly suggest that you try to generate a story concept each day. Most of them will be crappy. But — as Ira Glass says — that’s how you find the truly great story ideas.

So 30 story ideas in 30 days. My gift to you. Starting tomorrow.