"What are your deep dreams? Write for five minutes. Many of us don't know, don't recognize, avoid our deep dreams. When we write for five, ten minutes we are forced to put down wishes that float around in our mind and that we might not pay attention to. It is an opportunity to write down, without thinking, wishes at the periphery of our perceptions.
Reread them. Start to take your dreams and wishes seriously."
- Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
Are you a deep dreamer? I am, and I think most writers are. My thoughts are always going in different creative directions, but the stories in my head swirl around and mix themselves together, making it nearly impossible to form a coherent plot from them. But, I have discovered that if I sit down and pull bits and pieces from my sleep and day dreams, I can usually come up with a pretty solid plot line, and then learn to fill in the blanks from there.
Some ideas will always stay just that, ideas. They will never form a story, never be released from my personal thoughts. But so many of my ideas come to me randomly, and I have been taking advantage of having a smartphone and sending myself moments of inspiration or ideas that come to me during the day when I am not at the computer.
Then there was the time I woke up from a dream, and grabbed a piece of paper, furiously scribbling down what at the moment seemed like a life-changing idea for my current book.
I looked at it later, now fully awake, and my husband rolled over laughing.
"Blinking horse, gaze fondly."
I have no earthly idea how that ridiculous conglomeration of words seemed like inspiration to me, but it probably had something to do with only getting 5 hours of sleep, broken up by a 1 1/2 year old climbing in our bed.
Avoid the blinking horses, and your dreams may turn out to be the first hints of the story you were meant to write!
Reread them. Start to take your dreams and wishes seriously."
- Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg
Are you a deep dreamer? I am, and I think most writers are. My thoughts are always going in different creative directions, but the stories in my head swirl around and mix themselves together, making it nearly impossible to form a coherent plot from them. But, I have discovered that if I sit down and pull bits and pieces from my sleep and day dreams, I can usually come up with a pretty solid plot line, and then learn to fill in the blanks from there.
Some ideas will always stay just that, ideas. They will never form a story, never be released from my personal thoughts. But so many of my ideas come to me randomly, and I have been taking advantage of having a smartphone and sending myself moments of inspiration or ideas that come to me during the day when I am not at the computer.
Then there was the time I woke up from a dream, and grabbed a piece of paper, furiously scribbling down what at the moment seemed like a life-changing idea for my current book.
I looked at it later, now fully awake, and my husband rolled over laughing.
"Blinking horse, gaze fondly."
I have no earthly idea how that ridiculous conglomeration of words seemed like inspiration to me, but it probably had something to do with only getting 5 hours of sleep, broken up by a 1 1/2 year old climbing in our bed.
Avoid the blinking horses, and your dreams may turn out to be the first hints of the story you were meant to write!