Sometimes I get asked about my writing inspiration. It’s an odd thing. In most cases, I know what I want to write and when I want to write it. Other times, I’ll be out-and-about and something or someone interesting will strike me, those are the best times. I can jot down a few notes and move on with my day.
What I feel like when inspiration hits in the middle of the night
The worst time when inspiration strikes is when I’m sleeping and I’ll have a dream about the characters in one of my works-in-progress. Most of the time I can deal with it, I wake up the next morning and, again, jot down a few notes and move on. But then there are the times when I’m trying to sleep and the characters talk to me. They won’t shut up. Crazy, I know, but it happens.
When this happens, it’s normally the main character who won’t shut-up telling me about themselves and what they want. On rare occasions it’ll be a secondary character who will push aside everything, and everyone, to grab my attention. They will normally address themselves, however once in a while they’ll address the plot or something happening in the story and give me their opinion and their take on the situation.
Overall, this can be helpful. So I don’t tend to mind too much as long as they let me sleep. Normally after I get up and jot a few notes down.
Recently, on vacation, I was having a massage and one of my characters popped into my head and started talking. Telling me what they wanted and what they thought would help the story move a long. So, there I was having a wonderful eighty minutes massage with one of my characters chatting away. I was stuck, so I had to listen. What I got out of it, was not only some really great plot points, but help to flush out his character.
More importantly, I was still able to enjoy my massage.
Additionally on vacation, a different character, from another story decided the setting where I was on vacation, would be a perfect place for him and several characters from his story to have a ‘major’ event happen. I wasn’t planning on this to happen in that story but, the more he talked, the more I liked the idea. So, when I got back to the resort, I made notes and came up with additional outlines for that story.
Inspiration for me, comes from anywhere and anyone. I would like to say that I can sit down and get inspired and then shut it off when I want to. But that isn’t always the case. I suppose I wouldn’t want it any other way. Well except when I want to sleep or relax. Or like right now. I should be working on my next chapter, however, I’m writing this instead