100 Day Creative Challenge Day 65: I Dream For a Living
Steven Spielberg famously said:
I don’t dream at night, I dream at day, I dream all day; I’m dreaming for living.
Daydreaming is part of the Art of Procrastination. It’s legitimate procrastination. Dreaming is time spent thinking without borders.
People often ask me where my ideas for novels come from and I tell them, ‘I don’t know.’
It’s a Big Magic as Elizabeth Gilbert says. I think of characters as real people with real problems. As I walk in the bush, run on the treadmill or sit on a beach, my mind wanders into daydreaming territory. Daydreaming takes me to imaginary worlds on journeys with imaginary people who have fantastic stories. I live with these characters for months or in some cases, years.
Last week I got up and put the kettle on to make a cup of tea. I’d been daydreaming about Laura, the woman in a novel I’ve been working on for five years. I tried to summon her up and couldn’t find her.
‘Where are you, Laura?’
‘I’m here, but you’re tired. you need to have your tea and then we can have a visit.’
Now all this sounds weird I’m sure. Maybe super spiritual or psychic-sounding, but when I daydream the characters visit and then I can write.
Once I’ve finished writing the book, they fade away a little. I can call them up like an old friend, but new ones are in the forefront of my daydreams.
Daydreaming is an important part of a creative person’s day. You can’t exactly schedule it, but that’s why most creative need to be alone at times. Why we withdraw and just stare out of the window at a bird or at the sky and don’t hear you when you speak to us. We may hear something, but it’s like being a bubble. The sound is muffled. We far away. The bird or the sky may be what our eyes appear to be focused on, but our minds are busy visiting our characters.
Today’s challenge is to allow time for daydreams. It’s where the magic happens.
Writing is daydreaming with ink. Liana Brooks
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