A Spark of Creativity

I sometimes wonder what sparks our creativity. I live in a small town in northeastern Alberta. There's a triangle of towns here, all about an hour apart. My daughter and I often visit the neighboring towns to shop in stores not available in our hometown. Well, she drives. I quit driving a couple of years ago.

Funny, though. We get in the car, she turns on the radio or CD, not full blast, but loud enough to make conversation difficult, and off we go. As soon as we're on the road, my mind wanders to my novels.

Yesterday Andreas Cole, the vampire from my urban fantasy, The Hollows, sat behind me and whispered in my ear. He told me things like: "You know, I didn't take the road to The Hollows on a whim. I stopped the car and sniffed the wind and I could smell the undead." Lacy Copper, heroine of The Hollows, tells me how her first glimpse of Andreas knocked the breath from her lungs. "He was magnificent," she confides. "But he was a bit frightening as well. There's something...different about that man."

On a recent drive, I found out some surprising information about the characters in my story, When Gods Collide. I hadn't noticed the veterinarian's scarred face, or seen the strange silver sheen in the eyes of the heroine's son until two of the minor characters pointed out these obvious facts.

I'm not sure why my mind works this way. I can sit in front of the computer or curl up in a chair with pen and paper and although the thoughts do come, not with the frequency or power of those I get while I'm riding in the car. The music seems to make no difference. I often have music playing when I'm writing.

I can picture myself, year after year, riding from place to place, looking for, not new stores or new towns, but for fresh stories and ideas to spark my plots. I can think of worse ways to spend my time.