While I Was Sleeping

Most ideas for my books come in dreams. Dreaming is like watching a movie for me! I dream in plots and stories some time.

Other ideas I believe God just pops into my head. Not to sound super spiritual, but it’s true. Some of the stuff I come up with is because I wasn’t trying to come up with anything at the time.

Here are a couple of examples of how I have used my dreams and ideas from God in my WIPs.

After attending a romance writer’s meeting a couple of years ago, I asked God to give me a romance idea since romance writing wasn’t something I was particularly interested in, but I wanted to be a part of this writing group. That night I had a dream about a retired football coach, and an idea for a romance was born.

After reading a suspense book, I asked God to give me an idea. It came to me while I was in the car. A simple “what if” idea and Whallah! My current suspense.

While I sat in church one day, a scripture jumped out at me. No, not literally! I wanted to know more about this person in the Bible. So I went home and started writing a Biblical fiction novel.

Months ago I woke with a crazy dream. I wrote it down and it has supernatural suspense written all over it.

My recent idea came while reading a chicklit novel. I woke up at 4:30 am from a dream and couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided to get up and write. I ended up with the first chapter to a momlit novel.

Don’t knock those dreams. They can be inspiration from God or possibly indigestion from the late night pizza you ate. But either way, for me they make great material for my books.

So where do you get your ideas from?

Gina Conroy is a homeschooling mom of four, founder of Writer...Interrupted, and writes about how she struggles to balance it all her on her blog Portrait of a Writer...Interrupted. If you happen to figure out how to do it "all" before she does, please leave her a comment!