Dreams as Muse

Late with my blog again! Where do these days keep disappearing to?

I had a strange dream last night, and as I was trying to describe it to my spouse this morning, I thought back to other dreams I've had, particularly the ones I've tried to make into stories. Have you ever done that, used a dream as the basis for a story? Legend has it that Frankenstein started as Mary Shelley's nightmare, and a lot of non-writers think that all a writer has to do is convert their dreams into stories. I have tried it, and it's not as easy as those non-writers think it is.

Dreams may be extremely vivid while I'm having them, but fade quickly once I wake up. As I struggle to write down the beginning, the middle and end are fast disappearing from my memory.

Dreams may make perfect sense while I'm having them, but not in the cold light of day. When I try to explain a dream to my spouse, or write it down, I wind up using such explanations as 'somehow I know this', 'for some reason this happens', and so on. Stories don't work when they're full of somehow and unknown reasons, so I need to fill in those blanks as I convert the dream to story. Most of the time, that plays havoc with what came later in the dream. So far as I can remember it.

What limited success I've had in using dreams is when a particular dream manages to inspire a scene. A single scene. That's about the best I can hope for. And sometimes, even that doesn't work out. Of course, that doesn't keep me from dreaming.

So, how well do your dreams work as a muse? See ya next weekend. Trudy

Dare Something New

I’m late this week because I was out of town, and then because I traveled even further out of town. Sorry about that.

I attended Conquest in Kansas City. I’ve been going there for many years, and enjoy it. The first day we were there, I had some down time, and turned to the rough draft I was working on. Unfortunately, I found myself bored with it. I decided I needed some time away from that story. After all, I’d been working on it pretty exclusively for 4 or 5 months. But none of the other stories I had half-written appealed to me, either.

Like at most conventions, I attended a number of panels and discussions, some only marginally of interest. (Why is it they put all the best panels opposite each other?) Sometimes I pushed the wallflower me into a corner and actually TALKED to friends, letting the conversation wander this way and that, loop back and take another path…

Then I went back to my room and started a new story. It doesn’t take place in any of the various universes I’ve already planned out and written stories for. It involved ideas from several panels, had found encouragement in the conversation with friends, who were willing to assist in exploring ideas. I can’t say that I pounded out a 5,000 word story in a couple hours, because I wasn’t that inspired. The idea was there, but changing that idea into a rough draft has been a little more difficult as I actually tried to make it believable. But it’s come along nicely, thank you, even though I’ve only had a few hours to spend on it since I started it last weekend.

So, dare something new. Just as some women find a new pair of shoes to be refreshing, and some people find a new hobby to give a fresh flavor to their life, your writing may need an infusion of something new from time to time. Don’t get stuck in a rut. See ya Sunday. Trudy