It's crowded in here.

Pat Davids here wishing you a happy April.

It is April already! Can you believe it? Normally, at this time of year we are praying for the temperatures to warm up and the flowers to start blooming. The weather this year has been unusual, to say the least.

And unusual is our blog topic for the month. We're going to be blogging about the most unusual item in our writing spaces. Right off the bat, I think it's probably unusual to have numerous invisible people clamoring to make you write down their words. Perhaps not unusual for writers, but certainly unusual for the general population.

We all have them. Those characters that aren't in our current work in progress. They whisper their secrets, they tease us with glimpses into their personalities, and they tempt us with a story that seems so much more exciting than the one that we are only halfway through writing.

Making them stay quiet long enough to actually finish a book can be challenging. I try not to give into them, but sometimes I am forced to jot down notes that will help me when I'm finally ready to tell their story. Let me share with you some of the unusual characters that are knocking on my brain because they want out.

Leah, the Amish school teacher who saw the man she loved marry her sister out of duty because his brother got her pregnant and then ran off. Now, the brother is back in town. Can Leah forgive him for the harm he caused so many people?

Jake, a contemporary cowboy convicted of cattle rustling, who is trying to rebuild his life in the community that openly distrusts his motives. It doesn't help that he is falling for the daughter of the judge who sent him to prison.

Roman,. A man whose badly injured arm has put an end to his dreams of becoming a professional ballplayer. Did he leave the Amish for the outside world? Maybe. He isn’t ready to tell me the whole story. He’s not done growing.

Buck, a man of the old West bent on revenge for the death of his murdered brother and family. I know Buck well. He’s grown from a boy to a man in a previous story, but he is patient. He’ll wait for his turn.

Kira, the Princess of a planet overrun with evil, who must find a way to save her people even if it means surrendering her very life to a reclusive but powerful wizard in order to gain his help.

Rhonda, a quiet Amish spinster who adores fishing. She wants to know who her love interest is going to be in her book. I have no idea, but he's in here somewhere.

THEY ARE ALL IN HERE SOMEWHERE.

What is a poor writer to do? How to pick and choose? What makes telling one story more imperative than the others?

Writers, you must remember one important thing. It is your brain. While your characters might think they are in control, they are only guests. They have no voice until you give them one. Hold them hostage until they are needed. Unless, of course, you are one of those lucky people who can work on more than one story at a time. I can’t.

Leah is going to have her story told in my next book. Everyone else gets beaten to the back of my brain where they must rumble around and grow into fully developed characters that are ready to come forward and reveal their tale.

These are some of the unusual characters that share my writing space. Tell me about the unusual characters that inhabit your writing space. How do you keep them in check? What’s your method for keeping them straight? Do you have trouble making them stay silent until you need them? If you have kept them quiet for a long, will they speak up when you need them? Come on, share. I know I’m not the only one that keeps unusual company inside my head.