I’ve always wondered how writers come up with ideas if it wasn’t through dreaming. Whenever my high school creative writing teacher asked us to write to a prompt, I was never quite sure how to begin. How could I make it work if I didn’t have dream material? And when readers have the opportunity to ask their favourite authors/ writers where their story material come from, the answer is always different. Margaret Atwood, in her MasterClass, mentions that most of her stories are inspired by events that historically occurred in the real world. Her statement makes her famous novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, even more disturbing. As for myself, well, most of my ideas do come from dreams. I remember a lot of them because they are ripe with story material. Of course, I don’t remember all of my dreams, but the ones I do seem to hang on. It’s why I keep a dream journal! The moment I wake up, I madly write out what happened in my dream since the details are still fresh. Time is of the essence because those details recede quickly. My novel is actually based on one of my dreams. It’s gone through multiple revisions and drafts (on #5 now! Or is it #7…), but the original dream material—the characters, the plot, the idea—has remained the same since I was ten years old. Don’t you hate it when you have a good dream, but you wake up before it’s finished? Yeah, well, my novel dream didn’t finish. I don’t know how it ended. But, it’s like the Muse of Creativity gave me a taste of this idea to see if I would follow through with it, and I have ever since. I may have told this story already, but I started writing my novel on my iPod immediately after having this dream. I would stay up really late typing on that small touch screen in the notes section. I can tell you the first draft was long. It scrolled on and on and on and on and on. And then, one fateful day, I accidentally deleted it. I couldn’t retrieve it, either. Of course, I was crushed, but I didn’t let this blip stop me from finally going to my computer, opening a word document, and writing my novel. I had a general idea of how I did it on my iPod, so typing on my computer shouldn’t be as hard, right? Let me tell you, the writer’s block came on strong. Honestly, I should have started creating my novel on my computer in the first place, but I didn’t think much would come of it at the time. I wrote out my dreams, yet this one stuck. I’m glad it has because I’m going to publish it. Soon. Anyone who knows me hears this regularly, but I mean it. I am. No matter what, I will get my novel published. And I have other ideas—so many ideas that have come from dreams. It might be a bit concerning, but whatever we dream about, we’ve seen through TV shows, movies, ads, people we pass on the street, and what we envision as we read. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I always found it hard to create ideas if they weren’t from dreams. But, I challenged myself in all of my creative writing classes. The more I practiced, the more I learned that ideas are everywhere: in music, people, costumes, dreams, and prompts. Anything can give you an idea, including personal experience. I recently had a story published by YEGWrites Press in the YEGWrites Volume 1: A COVID Year Anthology. I crafted the story in this anthology from a personal experience because it helped me process what I was going through at the time. My editors challenged me, and with their help, this story reached its full potential. I go back and read it often because I surprised myself, which doesn’t happen often, but I like to linger in that feeling when it does. ~ Mady *Note: The words highlighted in red (MasterClass and YEGWrites Press) are links that take you to their respective websites. I am not receiving payment for linking them.
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1/11/2022 07:08:07 am
More vivid dreams to you so you can create fascinating stories!
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In the end, we'll all become stories. ~ Margaret Atwood
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