My guest this week is G. L. Drummond, a sword-toting alien with a fetish for fur and four-legged creatures who writes fiction and tweets. She is also 'Mom' to The Chihuahulha - http://twitter.com/#!/theChihuahulhu
Visit her blog, Feral Intensity - http://feralintensity.com/
or follow her on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/Scath
The Voices
One of the questions I’ve been asked, as I’m sure most writers have been, is ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’
Because of that, I’d like to talk about my Voices today.
The Voices are characters; they live in a section of my brain I’ve dubbed the House of Craze.
The House of Craze is a 2-story tavern built of stone and wood. First floor is the tavern room, kitchen and storage. Second floor is a long hallway with doors on each side that extends as far as the eye can see – no matter how far along it you walk.
Behind each door lies a reality. Some are alternate Earths, some are alien worlds, and some I haven’t had the chance to peek behind, or have seen any characters come out of yet.
Downstairs, the current tavern keeper is Nyx. She’s a Reality Shepherdess. She calls herself ‘Homo Sapiens Ultima’, and if you piss her off, she might chuck a star at you.
There is no one better qualified to keep order, as she’s far more powerful than the rest of the Voices. And that? It’s a good thing, when you have humans mixing with aliens, Psionics, witches, elves, shape shifters, dragons, vampires, cyborgs, genetically created beings and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Of course, sometimes Nyx’s idea of crowd control is filling the first floor with extra butter popcorn. Then all I’ll hear for a while is the steady sound of crunching as those in the tavern at the time eat their way out.
But that does tend to put an immediate halt to brawls.
The Voices first began to appear in 2000, when a witch by the name of Sienna Moore whispered a little story to me. Aside from the occasional mutter of a few other Voices, it was quiet from there until 2007.
That year, my brain exploded and once the dust and goop had settled, there were hundreds of Voices and hello, House of Craze!
Where did the Voices actually come from? What gave birth to them?
Thirty-six years of reading, TV & movie watching, life experiences, interacting with and watching people around me. All of that percolated in the dark, dusty recesses of my subconscious, waiting for the perfect opportunity to burst out of the shadows and attack me.
When I read a book and thought ‘I can write this well – maybe better’ and stopped watching TV, their perfect opportunity arose.
BOOM!
There they were, and they haven’t stopped multiplying since.
I don’t have a muse, but hundreds, maybe thousands, of people living in my head. Some whisper, some scream. Some get pissed and go gryphon hunting on Faedriae for a few months, when I don’t pay enough attention to them.
This is my life as a writer, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Not even when the Voices are driving me insane.
6 comments:
I have a muse. She's a total ditz and tends to get bored in the middle of projects and wander off to research axial tilt or halophytic plants. Yep she's very much a worldbuilding muse.
Once the story begins then I rely on the characters themselves because she's useless at that bit.
But your characters, if you aren't careful they'll start sneaking through doors into each other's worlds...
Ain't that the truth, Becky. haha Thanks for stopping by.
They already do, I just never share *those* stories, LOL. =)
very interesting and entertaining post. I have those voices also that is why I am up at 5AM when I could have slept until 7. But they do help me tell my story ( although mine is told with photographs) I will start following
http://jpweddingphotograpy.blogspot.com/2011/02/tutorial-anatomy-of-creating-wedding.html
Thanks Jim. Welcome to the family. I hope you follow Scath too. I really enjoy her blog.
Fascinating post. Makes me wish they'd come visit me--though maybe not. You don't have to be creative. You just have to exist with your Voices.
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