I hope you’re not disappointed when you find out I’m talking about sleeping with my characters, not guys (or gals) I pick up in a bar. 
Cynthia Eden guest blogged at Divas of the Dark yesterday about starting a new book. She said: “Whenever I start a new story, I’m both thrilled…and scared as hell.”
I’m starting a new book, and Cindy’s use of the word “thrill” nails what I feel. When I think of my book, my body vibrates and I feel a buzz. I get “thrills”. For good reason. We should feel this excitement, this wonder mixed with fear! It’s amazing what we do. We start with a thought and another thought and another one. Starting with one word, one sentence, one paragraph, we build worlds, planets and neighborhoods. We create people that are real to us and we hope are as real to the reader. We see them, we know what they wear, think, feel. Yet they have secrets from us that we uncover as we write.
As I go for a walk, they whisper their secrets in my ear. When I shower and wash my hair, they whisper louder. I go to bed, and they’re in my head. I jump out of bed and run to the bathroom to scribble down the idea I just thought of. Maybe a phrase, maybe a few lines of dialogue. Sometimes this happens a half dozen times. Until finally I fall asleep with these strangers in my mind.
In a blog last week, Spyscribbler said: “I spend more time in a day imagining my story world than writing it. I probably imagine ten scenes to every one that makes it in my story. Five hours of imagining to two hours of writing.”
I’m not sure if I do that consciously, but I know my characters are simmering underneath my thoughts, just waiting for my mind to quiet so they can pop up and tell me what they’re really feeling and thinking. Sometimes I think I’m a creator. Other times I know I’m really a listener. They’re not dictating their story to me, but they’re co-writing it.
Right now, I know the story basics and I’m putting the cast together to fit what I have: picking the leading man and woman, their families, friends, enemies, plot points. As the writer, I get to choose the characters I’ll be sleeping with for the next few months. I’m discriminating about my sleeping partners. I have to care about them, I have to be excited about telling their stories. I have to know their flaws and their virtues.
What about you? Do you sleep with strangers, too?
awwww i love the kitteh picture.
Edie, great blog. I love the thought of sleeping with strangers. LOL. It fits perfectly since most of my ideas/snappy dialogue come to me while I am horizontal. I did want to tell you about something my daughter bought me for Christmas last year. It is a notepad that lights up when you take the pen out of the holder. I had mentioned to her about getting all these great ideas when I am in bed, and she went on a mission to find this. If you are interested, email me privately and I will find out where she got it.
Again, great blog. We are such sluts!!
Zoe, can’t go too wrong with cat pics. Barbara Vey wrote about the cat and writer connection in her PW blog today.
I love the when a story is new, and the ideas are flowing out like a river. when I hit the middle, I start to kick characters out of bed.
Liz, the notebook sounds perfect! It will be my Christmas present to myself.
So right about us being sluts. Sometimes I have a roomful of characters in bed with me.
Edie, love this blog! And so true. My favorite time is when these characters tag me, and follow me around all day. I’ve had a few pull my hair, and then there’s always the Miss Attitudes that keep shouting, “Look at me!”
Lee, my river is overflowing now! My desk is covered with notes. I have to type them up and put all this in some kind of order.
So funny that in the middle you kick your characters out of bed. That’s when I know them intimately and we spoon together.
LaD, I can see your characters following you like Mary’s little lambs. With the naughty, adventurous lamb prancing in front of you, peeking back and laughing because now she’s leading you.
LOL, Edie, so true!
Um, yep, I sleep with them.
and your new story has so much energy I can feel it here!
Karin, I never doubted you slept with yours.
Glad you can feel that energy. I’m getting the buzz again, just thinking about my book. I know that’s how you feel too.
Great blog, Edie. And ever so true. I love to mull over my story ideas, flesh them out in my head and then finally commit them to the ‘puter. It is an intimate process.
Liz, I know you live with your characters for a long time long before you type them out. By that time they’re not strangers anymore. You’re in a committed relationship.
Oh, Edie, I love the title of this blog! And I haven’t realized it, but, yep, I’ve been sleeping with strangers for the past few days, but, I think I’m starting to get to know those folks a lot better now.
Oh yes, totally, Edie! And sometimes, I fall in love with them a little bit. Okay, a lot. I think I love my current hero as much as I love Ranger. (*gasp!*)
I could sit in the shower for hours and hang out with my characters, LOL. (Thanks for the link!)
hahaha Karin is naughty that way
Cindy, I was thinking it would be a good book title. Too bad it doesn’t fit my new book.
It’s fun sleeping with strangers, but it’s a different kind of fun when you know them better.
Spy, you should make Ranger your own. Give him a different name and alter his looks. Janet Evanovich will never know. I won’t tell her.
I never thought of hanging out with my characters for hours in the shower. But I do get great character insights in the shower.
Zoe, I imagine Karin has orgies with her characters.
Hey!
Karin, saying it as I imagine it.
LOL! I have, Edie! There’s a bit of Ranger in all my recent heroes.
Spy, spread the good stuff around.
If I loved a character as much as you love Ranger, I’d do the same thing.