Whether standing in line for a latte’ or waiting for a streetlight to turn green I can easily zone into my characte’s, which makes them come alive. But what I find hard is to zone into life when I’m writing.
Come In has multiple characters, plots, scenes and seasons.It is my first book and it took time to develop. One of the best places for my creativity to explode was to go shopping at my favorite store, Value Village. I would purposely go there to do research and leave with bags full of ideas. And a few other things.
I wrote my first draft of Come In with Time After Time, by Cindi Lauper on repeat. The beat and the words moved me into creating my protagonist.
I’m thankful for my computer and all the Swiss Army knife things it can do. Back when I was a girl with a ponytail, yellow pencils were all there were. I chose to go without. Those nasty number-two pencils gave me a whooping, red indent on my middle finger and it hurt! They were like picking up a rattler. Their venomous lead was worse then snakebite. I much preferred daydreaming to writing reality stuff, and I must confess I still do.
Truthfully, blogging for me has been like riding up a dusty trail, behind an old horse that farts. My saddle ain’t broken in yet and without my good friend, Judith Ashley, I’d still be cussin’ at all this new technology.
Even though I didn’t lace up my bootstraps, suck in my gut, tighten up my oval belt buckle, and buckle down when I was a young un’ and listen real hard to my English teachers, I could have rode off into the sunset before turning grey. Instead, I’m thankful for all those years I gazed out the window and for writing by the light of the moon. The one with the silver lining.
Daydreaming can make dreams come true.
Are you a daydreamer?
3 comments:
Yes, Helen, I am a day dreamer.
Things have sure changed in the years we've been around and writing is so much easier now (technically speaking - the ideas and learning the craft remain the same).
Carbon paper copies, typing a whole page or chapter over because of a minor change - these are things of the past. I love 'delete' and 'copy and paste' - it makes those revisions (once I decide what they are) easy to implement.
I am so very grateful for my computer and it's word processing capabilities. It makes it possible to daydream while running my fingers over the keys (even if they don't always start in the right places).
It is a very happy thing for me to hear that I'm not the only one who puts on music and lets it loop over and over because a particular piece moves me through a scene, or a chapter, or more.
Turning the daydreams into stories that can be shared is really the best dream. And I hope that it will soon become reality.
Thanks for reminding me how much I love the creative process.
Laurel Newberry / Ally Lucas
Yes, I'm a Daydreamer. And I associate songs with my characters. I fell asleep as a child either reading or making up a story in my head.
A recent issue of Scientific American Mind reported on all the research that chronicles the importance of daydreaming to creativity. We need quiet time to let our minds wander and make those unusual connections!
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