Starting is…hard, at least, when I’m trying without an idea. Some of my ideas come from song lyrics, but not the whole song, usually just a line and I go from there. Sometimes it’s from personal experiences, like Synopsis of Our Lives, or twists on experiences, like Wishes Do Come True (nope, never pushed anyone out of a spaceship.) Occasionally I have ideas, but can’t finish them at the time, so I jot them down for later use, or I pass them along

Once I get an idea, I develop it until I hit my character limit, or come to a killer ending… or run out of ideas, I do that a lot

I like character limits because they mean I can throw down the gauntlet without doing too much work, but when I have a really good idea, sometimes it’s squelched because of it. I hate being five characters over, and having nowhere to cut from, because sometimes you really can’t cut without killing something clever or original. When I do shave, I start by taking the periods off the ends of paragraphs, so don’t think me illiterate