Voices in my head!

 

 

 

 

 

Shhh…don’t tell anyone but I have voices in my head. I understand it’s a common malady for romance authors and that we don’t fuss about it. After all, who would throw a steamy hot cowboy out in the rain? Not me. I invite him into my office, let him sit on the recliner behind me and tell me his story, and I type just as fast as my fingers will go.

 So this week I’m on the downhill slide on the Work in Progress (WIP) and hoping to polish it off by Friday. My friend, Shirley Marks, and I have this ongoing thing about Friday…it’s the day when we finish all the work on our desk, if possible, so that the weekend isn’t cluttered with things to do. It’s the day when we put the voices in our heads into their little boxes and do what we have to do to get ready for another week of writing.

That’s not always possible when the WIP is a 90-100,000 word book but at the beginning Friday can be the day when the first twenty percent of the book is done or when we finish the next chapter. And it’s almost a mortal sin to leave a chapter hanging all weekend. I’ve tried that a few times and it always ends up with the voices in my head keeping me awake all weekend and never leaving me alone, not even in the grocery store.

This is the second book in a brand new series that will debut The Lucky Penny Ranch Series in Dec./ Jan. with Wild Cowboys Ways. What I’m working on now is Hot Cowboy Nights and believe me Toby Dawson is one of those swaggering cowboys in tight fittin’ jeans that has that cowboy strut down just perfect. There’s no doubt he can deliver a hot cowboy night, but can he settle down?

 

Toby is on one side of me and Lizzy on the other, both demanding their stories be told from their point of view. They are flirting like the devil one minute and shooting daggers at each other the next but both of them are talking to me nonstop. Toby has been one of those cowboy, one-night-stand, players his entire life so he’s not even sure how to go about a real relationship. Lizzy has had more than one failed attempt at love and she’s not sure she wants to try again.

 

But the heart knows what it wants and it whines until it gets it. The voices in my head keep telling me that Toby and Lizzy’s hearts are doing some loud talking but that they are not listening.

What’s it like to have voices in my head? That’s difficult to describe but I do keep a notepad by the bed so that when they enter my dreams as well as my day life, I can write down a couple of words so I don’t forget anything. When I open up a file and write the first sentence I have tunnel vision from that moment until the book ends. I talk to the characters and yes, people do look at me strangely in the grocery store when we argue about what kind of pickles to buy. I like one kind but they are out of dill slices in the book so it’s not unusual for me to buy both kinds and then remember when I get home that Mr. B nor I either one eat dill slices.

Do you ever have voices in your head? What do they tell you? Have they ever talked to you in the grocery store?