There Must Be Something Wrong With Me

I just finished IMing with a friend and fellow author. As she had mentioned in the past, she was having difficulty with her current Work In Progress (aka WIP) because her characters were telling her to do something other than what she had originally planned.

In other words, the voices in her head were telling her how to write her book.

I've heard other authors make the same kind of claims. A character was not acting like the hero she wanted him to be, or the hero and heroine were not getting along, when they should have been making up and having sex. The list goes on and on, which is why I've started to doubt myself.

You see, my characters NEVER talk to me. I don't know whether it's because I refuse to listen to them, or because there's so much "other stuff" going on in my head that prevents me from hearing them. Oh, there's been plenty of nights when I've tried to get some sleep, but scenes and dialog and the like kept going round and round in my brain. (Thank goodness for the little notebook I keep by the bed for occasions like that, 'cuz I know I'd never remember those ideas come morning!)

But I continue to wonder what's wrong with me that I don't have that "kind of connection" with my characters.