Excerpt from an unfinished novel:

Michael’s dreams taunted him. There was a world in his sleep that disappeared when he awoke. Even though he kept a pen and pad on his night stand, he was never quick enough, strong enough, and talented enough to capture his dreams. When he was asleep, he could manipulate words; he created plots and crafted stories so beautiful, so exciting that he was sure they would be recited for generations…but as soon as he opened his eyes they all disappeared and he was left staring at pages of disjointed sentences and nonsensical stories.

Taken from Patsy, Coming no time soon…

I was inspired to write this post because of a crazy adventure dream I had last night.

I was in a rainforest in Guyana with some friends. The task was to reach a part of the island, within some time frame (yes even my dreams have some kind of structure) and apparently I was the only person shocked by these strange creatures in the Caribbean, whose sole task was to prevent us from reaching the sacred bush and get a tasty human entrée in the process.

We fought every creature – some of them physically- but most of the time it was a battle of wit and strategy versus strength. My Guyanese friends would give me a rundown description of the creatures, what their weaknesses were etc., while they stood there and waited until we finished (Yes they are monsters, but that is no reason to be rude).

I vaguely remember one monster who let us pass after we successfully reached a tree without being drenched in some weird substance raining from the sky  (Pigeons who ate too much coconut jelly?).

I won’t even bother to research what dream interpreters would say this dream meant. I’m too busy trying to remember who these monsters were and what they looked like because it would make such a good book or movie.

Alas…

I cannot remember.

I was prompted to keep a dream journal a couple years ago when I had this reoccurring dream. Every night I used to get a bit further in the dream, and then as soon as I woke up, I reached for my pad on the bedside table. It came to a point where I would be sleeping and fast forward through the dream to get to the point where I left off.

A couple years ago I would have had to create a makeshift anti-contamination suit to venture into my closet and dig through old books and folders. A few months ago I decided to buy a desk and chair, and I set up this really great area for writing because it was “high time I stopped writing while lying down in bed”.

It was a great decision! *Glances over at desk while writing in bed* It is excellent for storage!

The designated writing area

Anyway when I find my old dream journal, I’ll share one of those dreams here. The point of this entire post – I always get there in the end – is to advise you to keep a piece of paper and a pen next to you.

Sometimes those bestseller ideas can disappear in seconds.

Kirah