Where I Get My Ideas

I’ve been asked a number of times where I get my story ideas, and the best answer I can come up with is mythology.
Articles on Mythology
Mythology
A myth is a sacred narrative usually explaining how the world or humankind came to be in its present form, although, in a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story. Myths typically involve supernatural characters and are endorsed by rulers or priests. They may arise as over-elaborated accounts of historical events, as allegory for or personification of natural phenomena, or as an explanation of ritual. They are transmitted to convey religious or idealized experience, to establish behavioral models, and to teach.
Source: WikiPedia
I’ve been asked a number of times where I get my story ideas, and the best answer I can come up with is mythology.
I’ve been thinking about writing a vampire novel, but I want it to be different from anything out there. You see, what appeals to me about the vampire—what appeals to me about myth and folklore, really—is what people actually believed at one time.
Monsters are easy to understand as projections of the human mind, and thus as representations of some fear; however, the modern understanding of everything psychologically is a recent phenomenon. For most of human history monsters were taken at face value.
What modern audiences, living sheltered lives, preoccupied with escapist entertainment, and only capable of relieving boredom through sexuality and the grotesque, fail to understand about the origins of both the werewolf and vampire myths is that these were never projections of desire but of fear.
Three days ago, as I was taking copious notes on goblins, trying to investigate how far the myth went, and if it was older than the word itself, I heard a knock outside my study door.
– Werewolf Winter · A short story by Walter Lazo