So I have often had really weird, wacky, wild and worrying dreams. I seem to spend a lot of my sleeping hours fighting realities that melt into other realities, where I’m running from something, or to something, or battling some enemy. Usually I don’t remember my dreams, but this morning I did.

It was vivid and while it didn’t have all the elements of a coherent narrative it certainly had potential. One of the things I wanted to do on my holidays was start a writing project that was slightly longer than some of the other stuff I’ve written before, i.e. poems and short stories.

Now I don’t want to sound like the Stephanie Meyers redux, but I the dream I had last night is possibly the basis for an excellent* novella. Given that I have never written anything long (apparently novellas start at about the 15,000 words point) I am not expecting it to be polished, or worthy of publication, but I hope that it will be compelling enough for at least one person to read it and give me points on how it might be made better. It is about the first narrative that I feel has enough elements and substance to make into something long.

It may have started with a dream but I am making changes all the time to make it a better story, to give the characters more depth and consistency. I’ve been working on it all day and while I’m really excited about it, I’m also having significant difficulty staying focused and getting the initial ideas out of my head and onto the page.

I guess this is writing 101; lessons in self discipline. However I think I’m going ok, I’ve written 1800 words for chapters 1 and 2 today and laid out a very basic plan for up to chapter 6. I think that’s actually pretty good. But now, the real world beckons.

 

* for certain definitions of excellent; i.e. not very excellent.