Tonight, while watching Eurovision (and voting to contribute to my once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity), I finished writing my latest short story: ‘The Archive of Lost Dreams’.
What happens when someone forgets a hope, a wish a desire they once held? Where does the ambition go? Why, to the Archive of Lost Dreams. And that’s where Katie, our seven year old protagonist, keeps waking up.
My partner likes me to sleep well in the mornings because I more often than not come downstairs and tell him about my morning dreams, which are often very vivid and narrative-like.
My latest one consisted of me returning to school only to be confronted by a Godzilla/Tyrannosaurus Rex type creature that went smashing through the buildings trying to eat people.
One of my most memorable dreams inspired a story I half-wrote (and then abandoned) when I was fourteen about a doppelganger switching places with a young girl’s boyfriend.
A dream I had a few years ago gave me the backstory and motivation for the villain in the Innocence Saga.
Inspiration from dreams doesn’t always happen. I can’t remember half of my weird dreams, but I do remember the more story-like ones. I can recall dreams I had when I was a child – including the one about the skeletons that invaded my school, and the one where I jumped off an enormously tall tower and glided away from the witch chasing me and throwing spells.
My question is this: As self-published writers, do you use dreams to inspire your writing? How else do you come up with your inspiration?
Author and blogger Ron Knight wrote a blog post trying to predict future successful authors based on how they act as a child.
This bothers me: because I don’t fit his profile, and my whole life I’ve dreamed of being an author.
Now, I’m not too good at remembering the difference between what I was like naturally as a child and how I turned out nurture-ally…ish (new word, roll with it). I think a lot of my personality was influences by those around me. I was one of many children who was sexually abused by someone I trusted, and I won’t go into that because it’s private and this blog is public (and besides, he died a few years later, before I got the courage to tell my family), but I’m pretty sure that experience (among others) shaped how I am today.
Here’s Ron Knight’s checklist and how it compares to me:
Attention problems. Pfft. Attention problems? No way. Some of my friends would say how bored they were at school because it wasn’t challenging. I loved school and I was good at it. I could multi-task, and I knew how to set goals and prioritise. I finished my work early, then I’d work on my stories. No.
Academic struggles. The only time I ever struggled in school was when my maths teacher bullied me and I got a tutor (and ended up kicking ass), or when I was in Grade 9 doing a Grade 12 advanced science course. Luckily I decided not to become an astrobiologist in lieu of being an author. No.
No interest in reading. I would have thought you could tell authors by their absolute love of reading. I was a real bookworm. Whenever I went to bed when the sun was still up (summer holidays) I would read until the sun set. I always had a book with me. No.
Blurts out whatever comes to mind. Nope, I never did this. I was a perfectly behaved child. I never did the whole “Look at me!” thing. People often commented on how quiet and well-behaved I was. I was often lost in thought, thinking about my story worlds. No.
Talks to themselves. I only talked to myself when I was playing with my toys alone. My parents told me I had an imaginary friend called Claire, who was based on a character from a children’s picture book, but I never did. I don’t remember anything like that. No.
Born leaders. Well, this one’s a bit tricky. When I was small, I was definitely a natural leader. A combination of being the tallest and the most mature despite my age often made adults leave me in charge of other children. As I got older I encountered other natural born leaders, where I was more than happy to stand aside and let them get all the glory. But stick me in a room of sheep and I’ll lead them. I’ll lead the f*ck out of them. Yes.
Always doing things their own way. I would say no to this, but my mother would say yes. Not long ago we had a D&M (we have more of these since I moved to the other side of the world) where she said I’ve always done things my own way. Here I was thinking I was much more emotionally dependent on other people’s guidance. Turns out moving to England only knowing one person is pretty much ‘doing it your own way.’ Yes.
No problem getting friends. Oh wow, this is so not true. Most authors are introverts who prefer to avoid people and spend time in their own heads rather than make friends. I’m not good with people: they think I’m cold and aloof when I’m simply shy and quiet. So I’d say to this one: No.
Dramatizes everything. When I was small, I was guilty of this. It wasn’t so much the idea of dramatising everything to make it more exciting, though, as much a means of showing how smart I was by knowing the answers to everything – even if I had to lie about it. As I grew older I realised I wasn’t smart enough to keep lying, so I gave it up altogether. Yes.
Struggles with writing. Um, what? What kind of author is not good at writing when they’re young? So many authors from when I was a child quit school to concentrate on writing – like my favourite author, Louise Cooper. What kind of a person would want to pursue a career they didn’t like and weren’t particularly good at? No.
Emotional. HELL YES! I was an emotional kid, a tough teenager, and re-emerged an emotional adult. I cry at sentimental commercials. I get angry when people are sexist, or racist, or generally pricks to minorities or the under-privileged. I get ridiculously happy when good things happen to my friends. Yes.
I’m already uncertain enough about my future as an author. I don’t need a list like this coming along and telling me I don’t have it in me because I wasn’t like some other successful authors were as children (loving all the negatives in that sentence). As far back as I can remember, my wanting to be a professional writer was a secret dream, something I wanted but was told was out of my reach – a pipe dream. It’s not until I actually finished my first book (in 2010) that I thought maybe I could sell it. Before that, I was just writing for myself and maybe my friends and family and maybe in the FAR distant future for a larger audience.
…
…Oh come on, it’s not like I’m UPSET by this list. It’s not like this is the be all and end all, and any kid who isn’t like this won’t be successful.
Today I’m going to stress the importance of authors utilising editors by using references to the modern-day Doctor Who series. I will be talking about the David Tennant version of the Doctor (the tenth doctor), though, because Christopher Eccleston (the ninth version) only had one season and quite frankly it wasn’t as well written as Tennant’s Doctor. Also, I haven’t seen enough episodes of the Matt Smith (the eleventh Doctor) version. Fear not, that will be rectified as my partner bought the Matt Smith DVDs for Easter and we’re about to start watching them.
Last night as we were watching The Waters of Mars 2009 special episode, I realised just how important it was for the Doctor to have a companion. Specifically, he needs a human to help guide him through tricky situations such as Pompeii and the Mars issue.
When the Doctor and his red-headed companion Donna Noble went to Pompeii, the Doctor was convinced there was absolutely nothing he could do to save the people: of course, it was written into history that the volcano would erupt and poison everyone and cover them with ash etc, but the natural disaster was such an enormous event that even the Doctor couldn’t prevent it. He, in effect, chose to sacrifice Pompeii to save the world: which is a fair choice, when you look back on it. But when he wasn’t even willing to save a small family, that’s when Donna stepped in. Through her begging, the Doctor eventually decided to turn back and rescue that family.
Donna Noble begging for the lives of a Pompeii family
Now in the parallels I’m going to draw here, you have to imagine that the Doctor is an author, and his companions are his editors. If the Doctor had his way, he wouldn’t have saved that family. He needed his companion/editor to convince him to change, to make things better, to make himself and the world and all of history. The same goes for an author’s work. An author needs an editor to help make their manuscript better.
And it was. I’m not sure I could have forgiven the Doctor if he’d let that family die.
The next episode I want to talk about is the first David Tennant special of 2009, “Planet of the Dead.” In this episode, the Doctor meets a woman called Lady Christina de Souza who is, in every aspect, a complete and perfect match for him. She is a better fit than any of the previous companions we have seen. She gives as good as she gets, and there’s even a hint of sexual tension. She and the Doctor make the best team out of any female companions we’ve seen so far, even better than Rose and Martha and Donna. However, the Doctor is still stinging from his loss of Donna, his best mate, so he refuses to take Christina with him as his companion, even though she’s so up for it.
The Doctor, Lady Christina de Souza and a fly alien thing.
In this parallel, I want you to think of the Doctor as going it alone in his publishing endeavour and foregoing an editor alltogether. Although Christina is his perfect match, he refuses to bring a new companion because he’s sick of losing them. He endeavours to travel by himself forever. Christina is, understandably, devastated. If you’ve found the perfect editor, you need to be able to take a blow to your pride by accepting that your manuscript can always be improved. At this point in time, the Doctor thinks his manuscript can’t be improved.
The Doctor and Captain Adelaide Brooke
Stay with me as I move on to the next 2009 special, The Waters of Mars. The Doctor doesn’t have a companion in this episode, as he’s just forbidden Christina to travel with him. So he faces this entire episode alone. There’s a major moral choice for him to make, and without the presence of a human companion, eventually he kind of goes insane with his realisation that he’s the last Time Lord and that he can do whatever he wants to history and no one is there to stop him. He tries to change history in a major way, and quite frankly, I really don’t like him at the end of the episode.
"I'm the last Time Lord." There is no one to police him.
So think of it this way: without his usual companion/editor, the Doctor makes a major mistake in trusting his own supremacy. An author will always need an editor to help make them better. No author’s manuscript will ever be as good as it can be without an extra pair of eyes going over it, correcting mistakes and making suggestions. In “The Waters of Mars”, the Doctor doesn’t have a companion/editor, and he’s not as good as I want him to be. He makes a bad decision that would not have been made had he had a good companion/editor with him.
The realisation that he does, in fact, need a companion.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why authors need editors!
My favourite author in the whole world was Louise Cooper. She was a very talented lady who sold a lot of mass paperback fantasy novels in the 80s and 90s, with a resurgence in the late 2000s. She passed away from a brain aneurysm on October 21, 2009, halfway through writing the sequel Bad Seed to the popular spin-off Daughter of Storms trilogy.
She quit school at age 15, sold her first book at age 20, and became a full-time writer at age 25. At her time of death, she had published over 80 fantasy and supernatural novels. She is my role model because everything she writes is pure magic. Even the most monotonous of plots or scenes will be filled with anticipation and perfect suspense.
I have collected quite a few of her books, but I am by no means fulfilled. Sometimes it is hard to track down the novels, because a lot are out of print. I scored my stand alones and my versions of the Time Master trilogy and its sequels and prequels on Ebay and in second hand bookstores. In fact, the only books I paid for new was the Daughter of Storms trilogy, when I was about 15 years old.
One of the reasons I wanted to move to England was the hopes that one day I might be able to travel to Cornwall and meet her, but she passed away in 2009 before I got the chance. She was an active member of her message boards, though, (when she had the time) so at least I did get my opportunity to tell her how much I adore her writing and how much it inspires me.
Lissa Bilyk 