Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Bike Club/Book Club, a book club whose members had read The Confederates’ Physician. One person asked me where I get the ideas for my novels. I explained that my novels come to me in dreams at night and daydreams during my waking hours. The dreams serialize themselves, coming night after night, week after week until the novel is finished. (That said, I always have to do the associated research on my own.)
Most of the time, the scenes are very vivid. Occasionally, however, I know what happens next, but the details are missing. That happened to me this morning while I was writing my next book. I’m not a patient person, so I gave it two minutes. After that, I still couldn’t see it clearly, so I stopped. I had chores to do in my stable, so off I went.
I cleaned the horses’ stalls, loaded the manure cart, hooked the cart up to an ATV 4-wheeler, and headed to my woods. As I was bouncing along on the 4-wheeler, manure flying out the back of the spreader, there it was! The scene was laid out like a movie. I could see the characters, what they were wearing, their movements, their expressions, what they were saying, and even their feelings.
After I finished with the manure, I headed back into the house. Now, I know I’m not creative enough or skilled enough to write these books on my own. They are given to me via dreams and daydreams. As I sat down at my desk, I whispered, “thank you,” and wrote the next scene.
