Is your muse talking to you in your head? Jenna Maclaine shares that you're not the only one

Where do our story ideas come from? Jenna MacLaine shares hers:

"Two of the things that I’m asked most often is where do I come up with my stories and how do I write them. I suppose my answer to the first question is the same as many authors would give to those who haven’t been bitten by the writing bug: “What else do you think about all day?” I tried explaining this at a dinner party with my girlfriends once and I’m not sure that I articulated it well. Saying that I have these characters in my head that constantly talk to me only prompted my best friend to give me a gentle pat and say sympathetically, “Dear, that’s not talent. It’s schizophrenia.” And perhaps she’s right, but I have no other way to explain it. Every synopsis I hand in to my editor comes with a disclaimer that this is what I intend to do, but my characters may have other ideas. It’s this sort of thing that makes the second question harder to answer.

Generally when I begin a book I have a clear picture of where I want it to start, where I want it to end, and at least one or two great scenes in the middle. I know what I want to accomplish thematically with the story, but the rest is up to the characters themselves. I start writing and they tell me where to go from there. Sometimes it’s not where I intended but I’ve learned to just say, “Ok, if that’s the way you want it, we’ll try it your way.” It is perhaps not the most professional or time efficient way of going about writing a book, but it’s the only way I know how and it works for me.

So with no outlines and little structure, how do I get from point A to happily ever after? Sometimes I just have to sleep on it. A reader once asked me if I dream about vampires. The sad truth is that I don’t, but some of my best ideas do come to me in that twilight between waking and sleeping. That’s how I came up with the idea for my first book, Wages of Sin. I was just falling asleep one night and this scene floated through my head. It was like a 30-second clip from a movie and I woke up and thought to myself what was that? I knew it wasn’t really a dream because the girl wasn’t me, the guy wasn’t anyone I recognized, and it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like something I should be doing. So I laid there for a very long time and thought about it… and that’s how Cin Craven and The Righteous were born.

Of course, it’s not always that easy. Most of the time I know where I’m going with the next scene or the next chapter because I’ve thought about it while I’m at the barn cleaning stalls in the morning, or out walking the dogs, or doing laundry. Sometimes, though, the muse does abandon me, as it does all writers from time to time. I have the utmost respect for those writers who can keep going when that happens. Personally, I can’t do it. I have to take a step back and call a mental health break. I’ll set the alarm clock for thirty minutes or an hour- whatever time I have to waste, or would be wasting writing something I can’t use- and I lay down and clear my head. I resist the urge to think about where I’m going with the scene and instead I think about where I’ve been. Most of the time the solution doesn’t come to me right away and I usually have to go over it again and again until something clicks, but 9 times out of 10 whichever one of my characters is giving me trouble will usually step up and tell me what we should be doing next. This is why I keep a voice recorder on the nightstand. I once heard Sherrilyn Kenyon talk about waking up one morning and groggily stumbling through the kitchen to her office, explaining to her husband and kids as she went: “I just dreamed the best fight scene ever.” I tend to dream not about my characters or plots but that I’m writing and I can hear my own voice in my head as though I’m dictating the words. And, trust me, there’s nothing worse than waking up and thinking that’s the best thing I’ll ever write and then finding that by the time you wake up several sleeping dogs, struggle out from under the covers, and manage to make it to your desk its gone and you can’t remember what it was. A voice recorder on your nightstand might cause a raised eyebrow or two from your significant other, but if it keeps you from staring at a blank screen trying to recall what was just in your head a few minutes before, it’s worth it. It’s also a handy tool to carry with you while you’re running errands. I can’t tell you how many times a great idea has hit me while I’m pushing a shopping cart through Wal-Mart or the grocery store, only to be lost by the time I get through the check out line.

Whether you write by a rigid structure or are a slave to a flighty muse, we all have the same goal- to get what’s in our heads out on paper by whatever means works. I’ve never met two authors who go about writing in exactly the same way. And that is the beauty of our art. Before I started writing I never considered writers to be artists, not in the way that painters or sculptors are. But we are. We have our own tools, our own methods and styles, and we take the picture that is in our heads and breathe life into it, molding it with words instead of paint or clay. So, my friends, if the people in your head are telling you to make hats out of tinfoil, then you may want to seek psychiatric help. But if they’re telling you wonderful stories, then go write! (This makes them shut up, at least for a little while.) "