My characters don’t speak to me. They don’t tell me what they want to do or how they want to do it or what they will not do. I don’t have conversations with them in my head or elsewhere.
Often, I visualize a possible scene in my head and in that “daydream”, I can hear and see my characters. But it is like watching or making a movie and I am not a participant.
I also don’t have a muse. I don’t have some inner person rooting me on or feeding me ideas. I tried to have one, once, because so many other people spoke as if theirs were such a vital part of their writing lives. But alas and awoe, it didn’t work.
Does that make me a flat writer? Have I no depth or imagination? Is that why I feel destined to be a one-book-wonder?
You’re a crazy woman. “One-book-wonder”, indeed!
With the caveat that every writer is different, and how one writer works or sees things has absolutely nothing to do with any other writer, I think that:
Not having a muse makes you:
1) A grown-up.
2) Someone with the depth and imagination to come up with ideas that they acknowledge as coming from themself.
Not talking with your characters or participating with what your characters do makes you:
3) Sane.
4) Someone who can stand back and visualise a scene without feeling the need to be there. You’re writing a story, not personal wish-fulfillment fantasy.
I have a bucket of water and my kicking Wellington boots ready in case any more of this wild and fanciful “flat writer” talk comes up.
Thanks for the ego boost! We all need that, ya know? How goes your wordsmithing?
Speaking of Wellingtons, you get any of that little shower that hit England?
Rain, yes, but it was basically normal, and we’re not in a flood plain. Still, it comes to something when you put on a fleece over your jumper and think about putting the heating on for a bit in the middle of summer!