I had a whole blog started about bathing suits and blogs and how they’re alike in that you want both to make you look GOOD and not make people want to throw up into their mouths, but I figured we’d all heard that before and we knew better than to be morons in public on our blogs, so I’ll just stop right there and talk about something else, ‘kay?

Now if only I had something to talk about. 

We’ve covered hot guys, we’ve covered writing about sex, and we’ve talked about inspiration, the muse (or lack thereof) and the fact that as professional writers it’s our job to put our butts in the chair and hands on the keyboard and write instead of farting around all day on the ‘net or playing the Sims 2 or Guitar Hero on the Wii. We’ve covered music and movies and upcoming books. 

What’s left?

Well, I’d like to talk about all of that again and then some — how being a writer means that everything  you do, every moment, is somehow always tied into the work. At least it is for me. I collect stories the way some women collect shoes. I want to learn about people because listening to them talk about their lives and what’s going on in them helps me find new inspiration every single day. Because even though I have a pretty deep well, not everything I pull up out of it is fit to see the light. Sometimes what comes up in the bucket stinks and falls apart into sludge and I have to throw it away. It really helps, sometimes, to have someone else’s bucket to scoop from.

Something as simple as the story of how a couple met can springboard me into a whole, vast wonderland of WHAT IF. A comment, a phrase, a casual mention of someone’s favorite song can all lead me to add the small details to a character that make him real to me (and hopefully, to you.)

My best friend since junior high got me a t-shirt that says “Be careful, or I’ll put you in my novel.” And that’s so true. Everything I see and hear finds its way, somehow, into the work. Most of the time I change it to protect the not-so-innocent, but it still came from something I came across in my day.

I look at the world through a filter. I listen. I pay attention. And then I get lost in the world inside my head; I let down the bucket and pull it up and sift through the contents and hope to find something worth using. Sometimes I remember where it came from. Sometimes I don’t. But in the end, it’s all big jumbled mess inside my head and I do my best to mash it all together into something palatable.

I can’t imagine what it would be like NOT to be a writer. I can’t imagine how it would feel not to spend so much time taking WHAT IF and turning it into AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. I can’t imagine not…imagining. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What is one thing about yourself you can’t imagine ever changing?

M