Wednesday, March 15, 2006

And You Thought You had A Hard Time Keeping Secrets . . .


According to the Chicago Tribune, the CIA is having a hard time keeping secrets . . . because you can use the internet to learn all kinds of things about a person. Apparently some folks in the CIA are listing "CIA" as their employer . . . and the info is available for anyone to see.

You can read the article here.

I had a new idea smack me upside the head Sunday morning, and I'd like to use the CIA as a character's occupation. I wasn't sure how hard it would be to learn about the inner workings of the CIA--apparently it won't be as hard as I thought!

I'm often asked about how novelists get ideas. I tell folks that a novel really consists of four parts: 1) the plot 2) the characters 3) the setting and 4) the theme. I usually get one part in a flash of an idea, then I have to either come up with the other parts of wait for them to "flash" me, too. (Remember the "flashy thingy" from Men in Black? It feels sort of like that, but without the amnesia.)

In any case, I'm excited about this new idea. That means I have four, count 'em, four really cool ideas rattling around in my brain. (I get ideas all the time, but really GOOD ideas are rare.)

Now, to find the other missing parts . . .

P.S. It is SNOWING in Cleveland! People are sweating in Florida . . .

~~Angie

2 comments:

Leslie said...

There are certain movies-The Ben Affleck one where he is Jack Ryan (not Harrison Ford)-The Recruit (Colin Farrell) and others where the actors actually went INSIDE "Langley" Those movies would probably be very good resources for learning about the CIA-if you want ideas to it visually.

Anonymous said...

Vince Flynn writes CIA Thrillers