In the pre-dream just before I fall asleep, I think my subconscious lets its hair down…feels free to run its mouth and tell me what it’s really thinking. And when it comes to writing, it sometimes tells me what I need to do next or what I need to do to get started or gives me that image or phrase that I needed. So aside from that misbehaving mind that’s always with me, I also have the under-me…it’s getting crowded in here!
A lot of time when I am trying to get to sleep, I think about my most recent project. In that place between being awake and being asleep, I sometimes float by a really good idea. Two (or more) ideas or concepts bang into each other. A solution to a problem that has kept me from working on a particular book gets miraculously solved. Suddenly, I see how a character really feels or what they need to do to get where they need to be. Recently, I was working on a picture book rough draft. It had been percolating for ages. I was totally pooped (and getting a cold though I didn’t know it at the time), so I laid down for a restie (that is, a nap without attempting to read). I started to think about the book, and nearly the whole text came to me…parts in the right places…good words…before I fell asleep. It just needed some tinkering and an ending when I woke.
In the pre-dream just before I fall asleep, I think my subconscious lets its hair down…feels free to run its mouth and tell me what it’s really thinking. And when it comes to writing, it sometimes tells me what I need to do next or what I need to do to get started or gives me that image or phrase that I needed. So aside from that misbehaving mind that’s always with me, I also have the under-me…it’s getting crowded in here!
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OK, some of you who know me personally might not be surprised by this, but sometimes I have some wild dreams. Weird and wild. Maybe it is all those ideas percolating up there. Maybe it is the creative drive that gets stifled by life (the involuntary: ya gotta work to live and someone has got to warsh yer knickers & the voluntary: wouldn’t you rather play your videogame than work on the book? …). The creative drive pushing for expression that breaks its bonds in my dreams and manifests in dreams of tank-sized see-through rabbits and shape-shifting alien blobs attacking banks and being run over by freedom fighters in double-decker busses…yeah that’s a real dream. It bugs me when I'm watching a TV show or a movie or reading a book and the character has a realistic that tells them exactly what they need to know to advance the storyl I do draw inspiration from my dreams sometimes, but often they have to be toned down and have SOME rules of logic applied to them. One of my adult stories called “Rising on the Edge of Sleep” not surprisingly comes from a nightmare about a cowl-wearing figure creeping along the side of my bed parallel to the floor. I put the dream in a murder mystery (of sorts)—genre mashup! Some of my favorite dreams are actually about writing. I once dreamed I was in writing class. It was being held out in the woods. The teacher wore flannel…must have been in Maine or Oregon. He was teaching the class on the run while all of us students were running alongside him. He stopped at the top of a hill. Down in the valley was a barn with a decrepit silo. It was obvious that the silo was about to crash to the ground. He asked the class, “Why do you write?” I took off running toward the silo and shouted over my shoulder (as I ran right beside the silo), “I write to disturb!” And I do. That is not to say that I write to write disturbingly scary things. But I write to “interfere with the normal functioning” of my readers’ minds {thanks Merriam Webster for the definition}. I may disturb with laughter or sadness or fear…but I would like to tell a good story and do a little disturbing when I write. |
About MeTim is a writer, book reviewer and Librarian. He has a Master's of Library Science and was on the Newbery Committee twice. Technology scares and often annoys him, but he is always game for a silly costume! Archives
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