This morning I woke up and I had it. Or, at least, I had a lot of it. I dreamt about my script, about certain scenes that I’ve been mulling over for the past week or so. Not wanting to lose the images that I had dreamt about, I got out of bed and immediately started writing. Of course, there were a lot of absurdities in my dream that just didn’t make sense (Barney moving in with Robin and Ted because he’d lost his apartment, and me suddenly appearing to make eggs and toast for all the actors), but other things, like Lily’s relationship with her mom, and Barney’s war with one of his co-workers began to fall into place.
I still don’t have the complete “story,” (I can only ask so much of a dream!) but I’ve got the bones and a little bit of flesh now. This morning, I also did a little bit more research, a.k.a. I watched a few episodes to make sure I had some key facts on the background story correct.
I’ve wanted to dream about my writing, and key scenes I’ve been having trouble with, for a long time now. Granted, I’d been hoping to dream about my novel, but I’ll take what I can get it.
I’ve had dreams about writing before—sitting at a park bench and whipping out an entire chapter in long-hand, for example. But, I’ve never dreamed about, or at least remembered, specific things that I could actually use. So, I’m amazed that my dream was even slightly coherent and usable. Not only that, but in my dream, I played certain things over again, changing things slightly, and then running it by my boyfriend to see if he thought it made sense. It was like I was writing while I was dreaming. I wouldn’t mind if dreams like this happened more often!
I don’t expect this to be a nightly thing. Hell, I don’t even expect it to be a monthly or yearly thing. But the dream, at the very least, acted as an impetus to actually start putting things on paper. Lately, I’ve been writing without writing, if you will. I mull things over, wonder about characters and how they would react if I put them in a certain scene, but hadn’t committed very much to paper as of yesterday. As of right now, I have a good five pages. Not much, but it’s a start.
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3 comments:
It's definitely a start. :D
Liz,
This is very cool news. Your subconscious is working for you! Sometimes I think of a specific scene or a specific situation and focus on it while I'm falling asleep. I "what if?" myself into dreamland. I've never actually dreamed about my characters, but I have noticed that when I try this pre-sleep ritual, the next day's writing seems to flow better...kind of like the solutions bubble to the top as I sleep and pour out first thing, as opposed to mixing in with the dregs at the bottom of the glass that you have to gulp past to get to. Was that stream of consciousness or what??
Hey, have you connected to LinkedIn yet? I have made so many great contacts there and have learned so much about today's publishing marketplace. I wrote about it on my blog:http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com, or you can go to www.LinkedIn.com and get the scoop. G/B
Constructive and Ginger - thanks for the comments! I haven't had another dream about my script since this post, but it definitely opened the gates and helped the writing come forth, whic is always a wonderful feeling.
Ginger, I like your idea, too, focusing on what you want to write about the next day as you fall asleep. I'm going to try that as well, and hope that my subconscious gets to work!
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