Author's Tool #61b: Dream Harvesting

I would have slapped a “Paragraph 3, Footnote #12” onto the title, but I didn’t want to put too fine a point on it so early in the proceedings.

*“Yeah, and what point is that?” an impatient, Scrooge-like character challenges from the second row, adding a “Bah damn humbug!” for emphasis.*

The point is simply this: Harvesting storylines, inspiration or characters from dreams is a magnificent, wonderful idea… but one I have as of yet to master.

This is fairly laughable.

My dream output per night can easily be tagged Extensive (bordering on the Grotesque and the Worrisome, if we’re being totally honest).

My haul of goodies each morning should be back-breaking.

My backlog of 100k novels just waiting for that final touch should be monstrous.

I should be selling fully developed novel outlines on EBay just to pay for my Prozac.

Yeah, well, no.

None of that is happening, has happened, or ever will be happening.

My dreams are not friendly. In fact, I’d label them as personal attacks. They are not transferable to any other life than mine. (Bah damn humbug, indeed.)

But just because I can’t do it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Taking your dreams and finagling them into literary stockpiles is a smart idea.

By all means, go for it!

I’ll just be popping Prozac on the sidelines.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe