Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
Yesterday, I fell asleep in the afternoon for an hour or so prior to football (go Colts!). But it wasn't restful. Because JUST as I was going to sleep, I had the most AMAZING idea to stick in my manuscript. I was snuggled between my flannel sheets . . . trying to decide--get up and add it? Write it down? Will I just remember because this is so cool? I REALLY need some sleep!
I opted to just sleep, convinced I would remember. And I did. I woke up, got re-dressed, came downstairs, poured myself a Pellegrino, and inserted it. And it WAS perfect. Just what I needed in a key scene. (Joan of Arc makes an appearance in Freudian Slip now.)
But why is it the mind works that way? I read once that Thomas Edison used to fall asleep in a chair, with a roll of quarters in his hand and a pie plate beneath him. (Note, this could be an apocryphal story, but . . . it's cool anyway.) Just as he would give in to his nap, to the deeper sleep, he would drop the quarters, waking himself up as they hit the metal pie plate, and often coming up with new ideas.
I also come up with ideas while showering. Driving. Occasionally while drinking a martini. When beyond exhausted. It's how my brain works.
So anyone else get inspired at the oddest times? And what do you do? Keep a notebook by your bed? Get up and write? Roll over? Speak into a recorder?
I opted to just sleep, convinced I would remember. And I did. I woke up, got re-dressed, came downstairs, poured myself a Pellegrino, and inserted it. And it WAS perfect. Just what I needed in a key scene. (Joan of Arc makes an appearance in Freudian Slip now.)
But why is it the mind works that way? I read once that Thomas Edison used to fall asleep in a chair, with a roll of quarters in his hand and a pie plate beneath him. (Note, this could be an apocryphal story, but . . . it's cool anyway.) Just as he would give in to his nap, to the deeper sleep, he would drop the quarters, waking himself up as they hit the metal pie plate, and often coming up with new ideas.
I also come up with ideas while showering. Driving. Occasionally while drinking a martini. When beyond exhausted. It's how my brain works.
So anyone else get inspired at the oddest times? And what do you do? Keep a notebook by your bed? Get up and write? Roll over? Speak into a recorder?
posted by Erica Orloff at 7:34 AM
18 Comments:
One time I was in my car and got stuck waiting for the world's slowest freight train to cross the road when I got an idea for a short story. It was one of the few times I've ever had a completely formed story strike me out of the blue.
I grabbed every availabe bit of paper from around the car to write it down - envelopes, lolly wrappers, paper bags - luckily I'm a complete slob in my car.
I got home and typed it up, expecting to have to do a lot of tying together and rewriting but it worked great without having to do much to it.
I've never been able to get it published but it's still my favourite story I've ever written.
kathryn:
That is so cool! I just love stories like that--how the mind just hands you this work of art.
E
Notebook by the bed with the necessary purple pen. I always get up to write it down.
I keep the PDA there too, but I usually go for the notebook and pen, because it allows me to draw arrows. I use a lot of arrows.
I'm currently figuring out a Conflict Box in my notebook, after reading the latest post in the Crusie/Mayer Workshop blog.
may:
I always think of you when I see a purple pen or ink. :-)
And I use a lot of arrows too. My "outlines" are really like the flow charts or story webs they teach in third or fourth grade. Very visual.
E
Yes, the muse likes to drop in for a visit at the least opportune times: driving, taking a shower, mowing the grass, in the back seat of a taxicab...
And dreams. I think we all have a masterpiece buried somewhere in the subconscious. The trick is getting to it, recognizing it, and recording it ASAP before it slithers back.
Jude:
Cabs . . . yes, have had inspiration there.
Gardening. Getting into the earth.
And dreams. That's my big one. Last night, though, I had horrid dreams. I need to swear off champagne. It ALWAYS makes me dream weird.
E
Hmm. Champagne just makes me hiccup.
The shower for sure. I've written some of what I think is my best stuff dripping wet in a bathrobe.
Dreams definitely. Sometimes I have to get up and scribble them down (often in a way even I can't understand the next day) Sometimes I can associate them with a song and remember. Sometimes I just lose them :(
I know a neat concept or line is 'in there' but I can't seem to mine it.
Off topic, but do you ever have these epiphanies AFTER you've turned a book in? Often months after I've put something to bed I come up with ways to make it stronger. But that's probably just cuz I'm such a 'newbie' :)
Erica: Aww.. When I get pubbed, I promise to send you a signed copy--in purple, of course! *g*
Mine don't look anything like flow-charts. I need the arrows because it doesn't come out A leads to B leads to C. Mine comes out B, C, and then A. That's why I need the arrows, to put them in some sort of chronological order.
Lainey:
Yes. I have epiphanies afterwards. It KILLS me, but I also know at some point, you have to let go--cut the cosmic umbilical cord. I think that's why I never read by my own books once they're published.
E
May:
I'm nearly always linear--in order. BUT . . . I will sometimes think of something way at the end that I then need to go back and insert somewhere in the beginning. Like telling a joke, getting to the punchline, and realizing you forgot a key piece of the set-up.
E
I always keep paper and pencil/pen handy, as well as a voice recorder. I get hit with ideas in the car a lot, but sometimes while out with the kids as well. They will say something and that sets off a train of associative ideas and the next thing you know I have an idea for a story.
Lainey I do that at the end! But I remind myself of something I said to my Cp yesterday, there's more than one way to tell a story. One isn't necessarily better, it's just different.
ewoh:
Oh the twisting path of free association!
LOL!
E
Amie:
Sage advice. I'll try to remember that.
E
I always have some paper and a pen by the bed. Also, if I've got a problem with a book, just before I go to sleep I tell my subconscious to sort it out. Then in the morning, or when I start to think about it again, an idea invariably presents itself.... problem solved!!
sara:
Conscious dreaming is something I often do. Or I ask the universe for a "sign." Most of the times I get one.
E
(go Colts!)
You just doomed our burgeoning friendship. :(
(Actually, though I'm a diehard Patriots fan, I do like Payton and am rooting for them in the SuperBowl. Then we will go back to devastating them year after year after year. :)
Okay, ideas.
When I was a kid, my mother would be in the bathroom setting her hair for the next day. I was supposed to be going to sleep, but I would just babble on and on and on, hanging off the end of my bed to talk at her across the tiny hallway.
It was for the same reason we get ideas in the shower or while driving or doing chores that don't take a lot of concentration. When the body relaxes, the mind is freed.
Natalie:
It's actually Go Giants but since my team dooms me to perpetual sorrow like some kind of Greek friggin' tragedy, I'm rooting for Peyton.
And yes, when we're free--relaxing--the ideas come. That's why I don't try to force it.
E
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