Plotting and Planning | Carol's Musings

Once the bed is made, thoughts or dreams from the night before usually disappear into the fabric of a new day. But not always. The following account comes from my 2008 archives.

By 2:00 a.m. last night (technically, I guess it was this morning) I was ready to evict everyone. Some time prior to midnight characters from my novels had decided to gather at the foot of my bed and challenge my right to go to sleep.

Normally such nightly encounters are welcome. The twilight zone between yawning and oblivion is often my mind’s most productive time. As the day’s memories slip away they are replaced with solutions to story telling dilemmas that eluded me during an earlier writing session. Conversations with my characters are not unusual. It is in those not-quite-asleep-yet moments that just the right words jump into my unfettered brain.

What was distressing about last night’s group was that they weren’t the characters from only my current w.i.p. (work in progress), but also from the previous book. Granted, some of them appear in both, but their stories are not connected and last night’s dialogues won’t fit into either plot. It was a useless waste of my mental energy. I would rather have been sleeping, but the unruly guests wouldn’t go home.

We were out for dinner during the evening. Maybe I drank too much coffee? (Or not enough wine?)

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I’ve chosen a post to share from my 2009 archives today. I hope you aren’t minding all the “replays”.

“The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”

[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]

Imagination is a fascinating phenomenon. With it the writer’s mind creates people who don’t exist, places that have never been, events that didn’t happen, and somehow combines them to create a world that readers accept as real.

Indulging in mental wool gathering is a necessary prelude to writing. Staring at people in public places, talking to ones’ self, wandering in apparent aimlessness – these are often signs of the creative process in action. Of course they can also be signs of a rude schizophrenic who is genuinely lost.

Should you encounter me displaying an unusually vague state of mind please inquire if I’m plotting my next novel before signing me up for an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Do you indulge in public daydreaming? Has it ever caused you embarrassment?