I enjoy getting story ideas from what I see around me and from what’s happening in the world. Imagine my surprise when I found this snippet on a website relating to Miami, Florida? Given that my next fiction book after Slime in Time is SNALIEN!, you can imagine where I’m going to take it:
‘Huge, slimy snails from Africa recently overran a Miami (Florida, USA) suburb. Thousands of the giant African snail (Achatina Fulica) variety — which can grow up to 20cm, or nearly eight inches — have been scaring residents, leaving slimy trails and a foul odour when they die, and chomping up local plants. They also carry a health risk: they carry a parasite known as the rat lungworm that can enter the central nervous system and cause nausea, headache and nerve damage.
Snails are dual-sex, and hence can proliferate. The last time giant African snails surfaced in south Florida was in 1966, when a boy smuggled just three of them from Hawaii and set them free in his garden. They quickly started breeding, and it took almost a decade and a million dollars to get rid of them all. Now it’s deja vu!’
Do you see where I’m going with this? Inspiration is all around us If you know that little boy who set those snails free in his garden in ’66, email me.
Happy writing to you all.