I find I get my story ideas mainly by looking around and saying, "What If?" I can usually get an idea quickly that way. Whether I can do something worthwhile with it is the challenge, but an idea is a start.

After a while in the same place, though, the well runs dry. There are only so many "What Ifs" lurking in my office. So then what?

Simple -- I go do something else. Go for a walk/run/swim, go to a museum, or a movie, whatever. I travel a lot with my day job, which sucks mostly, but it's a terrific way to stoke the muse. And long flights and lonely nights in hotel rooms are perfect opportunities to write.

The spider story I submitted to this group came out of a business trip to the UK. I spent the weekend at my sister's place, and I saw a huge spider iclimbing up the drapes in front of her garden window. Her boyfriend said he didn't mind spiders, so we left it alone, and I started thinking "What if?" (He also took me to a few pubs, which gave me the idea of setting the story there. Pubs in the UK are a homey meeting place, not just a place to drink like in the US and Canada.)

BTW, Europe in general is a terrific place to go for writers of fantasy. The history, the culture, the architecture -- I like just standing in an old castle or building and trying to imagine life in its heyday, and trying to absorb the history.