Mining for Ideas

A lot of writer's I know talk about the arduous task of finding good ideas to write about. Many write once they get what I call the "Trigger". For example, Stephen King said the idea for "IT" came when he was walking across a small footbridge and imagined a troll(or some equally unpalatable creature) lurking beneath the bridge by the water. That is a "Trigger" around that you build your ideas. Personally I don't believe you always have to wait for the Trigger. I believe that everyday we walk through life we pick up information and store it in our subconscious and don't really bother to look at it very much. Sometimes what I do is literally sit and think about the things that transpired in a given day and try to stick certain things next to certain circumstances and see if they spark any kind of story idea. For example if I saw a strange person getting into an elevator, I might start thinking about what could transpire with that person and the elevator? What if the elevator went down and the doors opened and it was Hell? Something like that. Sometimes I just think and think until an idea comes, simply by putting one strange circumstance next to another in your mind. Kind of like making a puzzle when you're looking for the pieces. You keep trying and eventually two pieces will fit together. Then you keep going until you get all the pieces together into one big puzzle where you can see the entire picture! Story writing (any kind of story writing, short story, novel, play, movie) is a lot like that. Just a though. Works for me anyway. As usual, let me know your thoughts! Hope to hear from you!