Eureka!

Hi! 

How's everyone doing in their NaNoWriMo work? I'm just about to finish this book, which likely means I'll be starting another before too long, which likely means I won't be participating in the next NaNo... *sigh* anyway.

People asked me questions this week, and here, I'm going to answer them.

Question #1: 

Where do you get your ideas? 

This is one of the first questions anyone ever asks me when I tell them that I write for a living. They look me in the eye, tilt their heads to the side, and say, "Where do you get all those ideas?" And I smile back and say, "They just come to me." which I'm sure you all know isn't exactly the case.

Ideas come in more than one form. Bet you couldn't have guessed that one.

1. Dreams

If you know much about me at all, then you know Telekinetic and the entire Advanced series started because of a dream. I went to bed thinking about this guy that I had a crush on (not really sure at this point who it was), and by the time I woke up the guy was out and Reem and Jameson were in. At that point in my life, I had no intention of being a writer. It wasn't at all something that I wanted to pursue. But as the day progressed and I couldn't stop thinking about the dream, I eventually decided to write it down. The rest, as they say, is history.

All that to say that about a third of my novels and short stories are based off dreams. Some of them are greatly tweaked because my dreams tend to get a little crazy, but the fact still remains. 

2. Ambitions

This one applies more to my short stories than it does to my novels, I think. But a lot of my work is based off ambitions. I'd like to learn how to fly, so I'll make a character who knows how and describe how it feels through their eyes, to be so free. Some days I'd like to be able to read people's minds and know what's going on in there, so I'll write a character like Reem, who has the ability to do it.

You could say that this is also a dream, that these are things I've dreamed about, but in this sense "dream" takes on a different meaning. It's not something my sleeping mind cooked up, but something my very awake and very lucid brain thought of. 

3. "Fears" 

I don't like to use this word, because I never say that I'm afraid. I just don't do it. Because if you say you're afraid, then you're gripped by it and it's harder to get out. I'm never afraid, and I never have reason to be. But I've seen other people get afraid. I've seen it in their eyes. I use those things I see people being afraid of, and I make a story out of it.

In fact, that's partially how the Druid novels came to be. I was having a theoretical discussion with a friend, who thought it would be utterly terrifying to meet a humanoid species that was not at all actually human. So I took that idea and I ran with it, I made it happen.


So for those of you who wanted to know, and those of you who are looking for some ideas of your own, there you go: three places you can look for, and surely find, the pesky little eureka thoughts.

[love]

{Rani D.}