When An Idea Strikes

I think I've mentioned that my chief source of ideas is dreams. In particular, the dreams I have after I've woken up very early, tossed and turned for an hour, and then fallen back asleep provide great inspiration (these dreams tend to be of the lucid variety and have a clear story to them). And yes, I had another good one last night : )

I really like this idea although I only had a clear dream of a couple of scenes. It's relative briefness means I don't know much about the plot other than it centers around the murder of a girl. I know who the main character is and thought up a few others while ruminating on the dream, but there's still a lot missing.

Because I am a pantser by nature, I'm not going to let this hold me back. I'm going to start typing and find out what happens as it comes. This book definitely will have a mystery quality to it, but I'm not sure it will be a whodunit, so to speak. No, I'm not going to blurt who did it right away (I'm not even sure!), but a lot of it will be about  how terrible events can haunt you (the bulk of the story will take place ten years after the murder--it's the inciting event, but not necessarily the main plot).

I want to go write it now : ). Like lightning, this idea has struck and it's catching fire. I can't wait to see where it goes.

On Ideas

I got a new idea this morning, this one from a dream. For me, dreams ares not an uncommon place for ideas to come from--I would put it at fifty-fifty--but I still haven't decided whether or not the idea is workable. In that fuzzy place I wake up in, I can think the worst ideas are golden, but come noon I stomp it down into my subconscious because I'm so embarrassed to have thought of it in the first place.

However, this one has survived the noon critical point, so maybe it is. I'm still in the midst of editing another book and don't want to lose momentum, which means it will be around a month before I get around to this new idea. Who knows what I'll think of it by then? And let's not forget the twenty or so other ideas I have rolling around and waiting to come out. When I decide what to write next, it's usually easy. I look into my idea file and see what still interests me, what I just have to get out now. This one...I want to get it out now, but I have doubts about its staying power.

It's a horror story, something I've never written before and am not sure I could execute well. As you may have read, I have been reading horror since I was seven or eight years old. Even younger than that, I started with the Scary Story books (although the pictures were more terrifying than most of the stories), then Steven King, Lovecraft, and anything else I can get my hands on. But writing it...hmm. I've written fantasy, action, violence, suspense, and a few pretty gruesome scenes. But none of that is horror. It can approach horror, but e^-x approaches zero. Go look it up and find where it crosses in.

Still, I'd like to do this. The story is forming in my head, the ending is in mind. Details still need to be created, but they're lurking around somewhere. We'll see.