Steal this idea - The Big Squirt

Stuck in a rut? Writer's block? Looking for that right-angle turn in your novel? Try insomnia. It's cheap, and it works. Makes new synaptic connections that will blow your mind. The reasons aren't important, but I've had six hours sleep in the last three days. While driving the countryside at four this morning, deer darted in front of me and conspired in small herds in the fields to abduct me. I tried to be friendly and joke with one along the roadside.

"Who are the three greatest philosophers of all time?" I asked.

She chewed her cud, flicked her ears, and twitched her tail a few times pretending she knew the answer.

"Okay," I responded, paranoid that she's sending message to other deer to sneak up behind me. "First one, 'To do is to be,' is Aristotle. Second one, 'To be is to do,' is Descartes." I'm laughing already at the punch line. "Third one, "Do be do be do," is Sinatra."

Humorless, the deer snorted and charged the car. I drove away. But their intentions got me thinking about animals taking over. Oh, yeah! There's "The Birds" and a really crappy movie about all the animals taking over because of radioactive fallout and of course, we've been plagued by giant grasshoppers, bunnies, slugs, rats (remember Ben and Willard), ticks, and probably many other animals, but there's a new bad boy on the block. One that is real!!! I saw a special on the giant jellyfish, some up to 400 pounds, in the Sea of Japan that are ruining the fishing. There's 30 BILLION of them. The fishermen, in their haste to apply their own solution, started chopping them up. Scientists discovered that chopping them up signals the release of a million eggs per jellyfish. What if they start taking over? Everyone thinks the next war will be over oil or water or Gummy Bears, but I think this is ripe for a Michael Critterdon type of thriller as the jellyfish take over the seas, people panic, create solutions that worsen the problem (of course ignoring the geek with the right solution), then Jellyfish invade inland waters, and then, they find a way to get out of the water. How do you solve (or don't) this ecological disaster?

I've to go take a nap. Six deer are outside my window watching me. They are like POD deer, thinking I'm Kevin McCarthy, Donald Sutherland, or Nicole Kidman, and are waiting for me to fall asleep and take over my body. Beside insomnia. It keeps me, ME.