The voices in my head

Mechele Armstrong

My husband once said to me to be careful who I talked about characters to because some people might think I'm crazy. LOL I'm not crazy, I'm a writer!

When I was little, I had lots of imaginary friends. I also played elaborate games with my stuffed animals and even the crayons in my crayon box. The crayon box was a kingdom and each color had a part to play in the story.

All of this translated into having characters in my head. I think it's why I love to read so much, because I can live with those characters throughout the story and if it's written well enough, the characters do seem like they live with me. I almost hate to finish because I don't want the characters to leave me.

When I'm writing, characters usually "talk" to me. They tell me their stories. I usually know a lot more about them than gets written into the story. Some characters are very very loud. When I wrote Blood Kiss, there was a secondary character and his lover that I really enjoyed crafting their scenes. Henri Baptiste became very adamant that I needed to write his story. After all, I had come up with his backstory when I included him in Blood Kiss. He and Nathan needed their story told. At the time, I hadn't written a male/male tale nor had I written a historical. Henri didn't care. And so
Currents was born. I have yet to do another historical. It will probably take another character yelling at me to tell their saga.

In Night's Journey, I met a character named Cheyenne. Writing her almost got away from me. She was such a strong character, she almost took over the tale even though she was a secondary story arc. So naturally, I knew I had to
write her chronicle and that's how Surge was born. I had known the hero of Surge all along. But it was meeting Cheyenne that told me she was strong enough to be the love interest in the final Blood Lines book.

The same with writing the Rivals. I wrote a character named McTavish. And I knew I had to tell his story. He was larger than life and I knew it would be one of the latter stories in the Settler's Mine universe. Crafting his heroine and male mate was a tricky feat because they had to be strong enough for him.

Living with the characters in my head is fun though they are demanding. They want their own stories told. I'm not sure what I'd do with a quiet mind. Probably be very bored. Luckily, I write so things are never quiet in my
head!

Mechele Armstrong
www.mechelearmstrong.com