Sunday Scribbles - "Inspiration"

Inspiration

This is the prompt from this week's Sunday's Scribblings. I have decided to participate on the sly for a little while. I don't know how faithful I would be at it, as well, as I rarely visit a computer on Sundays, so my entries wouldn't be until later in the week. Anyway, here is my first attempt!

My inspiration for writing short stories, nearly always comes from a dream that I had at some point. It wasn't until after having written such a short story and having it read by someone close to me, that I was challenged to explain the process of my writing.

My stories are most often loosely based on a dream that I had, but the characters/players from that dream take on their own new lives as I begin writing about each of them. Even from the moment I settle on a name for that character, it begins morphing from what I dreamt about to what I imagine for my story.

My dreams are strange beings as well, as I'm certain many or most other people's dreams can be. Many times, though I may be the main player in the dreams, I am not necessarily myself. Most of the time, I do look quite different (shorter, taller, thinner, thicker, different hair color, etc...) from myself, but I am still dreaming from the first person's perspective, as if it were me. Oh, and many or most of the time, my dreams that become stories are not based on anything in my normal reality. The people that I love and know in my reality don't even exist in the realms of my story-dreams. This is not to mean that they don't mean enough to me to dream about, OR that I wish they weren't part of my reality. It just seems to be how my subconscious inspires me to write (or that is what I chose to believe).

Oh, and I do have many dreams that are based more in reality. All the normal players in my life are in my dreams and things are just as they are now, for the most part. (I still have dreams about being in high school...ugh!!!!).

In trying to explain how my writing process works, I have found, as usual, it is difficult for me to explain things about myself. You would think that for a writer at heart, descriptions would come quickly and easily...LOL...I seemed to have missed the activation of that part of my talent!

Basically I have come to the conclusion that I have a more active dream life than a number of people I know, or perhaps, a better memory of my dreams. I wouldn't trade that for the world, though (even the really intense/scary ones).