Story ideas while running

 I love to run. I didn't used to, a few years ago running and exercising in general was something I had to force myself to do. Now I look forward to it. I put on my headphones, throw on a Playlist of whatever I'm into at the moment, and spend an hour in peace. I have a circuit I do near my home so that I'm never too far if I need to quit early and it makes it easy to track my distance.

One thing I like about running is that it gives me time to think about story ideas. A pirate's last flight was mostly written in my head over the course of a couple of mornings while running so when I actually got a chance to sit down and actually write I had 80% of the work already done.

This morning I was thinking about what I want to do next and had a few ideas knocking around in my noggin'. 

The big one that came to me today will be set in the same steampunk world that A pirate's last Flight is set in. It'll follow a former Aether factory worker and his quest for vengeance after an attempt to organize and demand better pay and safer working conditions was brutally crushed by strike breakers, resulting in numerous deaths of workers and their families. 

Another one I want to write soon is again set in the same world but will follow an airship with a pretentious name like "The Lighthouse of the Heavens"or something, which will be designed as a luxury cruise ship meant to house the ultra wealthy of the same world as the rest of my stories. I'm sure an enormous ship meant to house the ultra wealthy to literally place them above the common person will have a long and peaceful service life.

In an unrelated world I've also been thinking for a few years about a story set in a low fantasy world. It would follow an Inquisitor, a technically independent investigator charged with upholding the ideals of the Empire. Officially his order would be loyal to the ideals, not to the emperor or even the empire itself, but in reality the undisputed ruler of an entire continent will have some influence on the order. The empire would be mainly inspired by Rome and would be partially based on Aristotle. The Empirr would be officially atheist, though mystery cults would have their place. The Inquisitor, accustomed to rooting out corrupt officials and handling bribery scandals and other mundane crimes, would be faced with a growing incursion of supernatural phenomena and entities that fly against everything the philosophers taught him.about the world.

One story I want to write is a short based on Hannah Fury's "The Vampire Waltz." It wouldn't be my usual genre but that might be good thing, practice writing outside of my comfort zone. It wouldn't be a direct copy, not some sort of "novelization of the song" type deal, but it does inspire stories in me.