Writing on the wild side or... Where do you come up with this stuff?

by Tawny

I'm so jazzed to welcome one of our favorite authors, Pamela Palmer, back to the Lair. Today's she's hanging out with us and talking about that ever-exciting topic that keeps all writer's going hmmm... Imaginations. I know, you can't wait to hear what she has to say (okay, read what she has to say) so without further ado... Here's Pam!!!

All fiction writers have imaginations, big imaginations, or we’d never come up with the stories we do. We’re the ones walking around with the voices in our heads. But these big imaginations can take different forms. I think all novelists love the quesiton ‘what if?’ But not every writer looks at a plane in the sky and wonders, “What if it exploded?” or “What if it just disappeared? Or morphed into an alien spacecraft?”

I think those of us who write speculative fiction (paranormal/sci-fi/fantasy) tend to have brains that serve up the strangest what-if questions. What if that dude in front of me in the check-out line were to suddenly shift into a jaguar? What if I could suck the life out of someone with the touch of my hand? What if I were immortal? All three of these questions came to me at one point or another in the creation of my latest Feral Warriors shape-shifter novel, RAPTURE UNTAMED, which hits stores Tuesday (June 29th). It’s the story of a pair of immortals -- a jaguar shifter with a ripping bad attitude, and a non-shifter who has a secret -- a forbidden ability that could make her a danger even to the Feral Warriors. The shifter, Jag, is the last male on earth she could ever trust. And, ultimately, the only one who can save her soul.

So, where does this stuff come from? Honestly, I wish I could give you the secret. I think we’re born with brains that serve up the surreal. When my son was four, he woke up one morning filled with the memory of a dream -- a dream about a magic ring with incredible power. His detailed explanation of the workings of this ring took a solid ten minutes and made eerily logical sense. Yes, he enjoyed books and he watched t.v., but I read the books to him, and was almost always nearby when the t.v. was on. I’d have known if he’d heard about this ring somewhere. He hadn’t. It was the creation of a four-year-old’s imagination. How does a brain that young come up with something that intricate, something that doesn’t exist? It amazed me at the time, and it still does.

Do non-writers dream like this? I don’t know. You tell me. My son has no desire to be a writer, but I’m convinced he has the imagination for it if he ever changes his mind. And I absolutely dream crazy, exciting, high-action dreams along with the more mundane and frustrating I’m-late-but-I-can’t-remember-how-to-get-there dreams.

What if I could shove my hand through that table...without breaking it? What if the Dupont Circle fountain in D.C. was a gate into the fairy world? What if I could see the future? The questions come almost fast as I can type them. There’s a fine line between weirdly creative and crazy, trust me. So where do these ideas come from? The best I can figure, they’re all a function of some weird quirk of the brain. If there’s a cure, I don’t want it! If it weren’t for the strange paths my mind wanders, I wouldn’t be able to tell the stories I love.

Do you dream? Do you remember your dreams? And if you do, are they strange or pretty normal (for dreams)?

In celebration of the release of RAPTURE UNTAMED (in three days!), I’m giving away three signed copies of the first book in the Feral Warriors series, DESIRE UNTAMED, one each to three random commenters.

Sweet dreams!