I originally subscribed to National Geographic as an idea mine for my fiction. I now have several years worth of back issues sitting in my closet, many of them unopened.
Now, I’m looking at clearing some space in the closet in conjunction with redoing my home office–that place where I write. I want to pitch the Nat Geos but if I do, I not only wasted the subscription money, i also fill in that idea mine. Libraries and used book stores around here don’t want them.
Since I’ve been struggling to be productive anyway, I decided to use the Nat Geos to solve both problems. I intend to pick up an issue and find three story ideas, adapting something we did at Scott Card’s boot camp to my own dual purpose here. I will write a story incorporating all three ideas from that issue. Once the story has been written, I have permission to throw the issue into the recycle bin.
Huzzah, win-win.