Nightmares!

In a previous post I spoke about different kinds of sources where writers might draw inspiration from for novels. And by far my favourite source (as might have been evident) are dreams. I hope you bear with me on writing about this yet again, but I wanted to explore a different take on this inspiration source: nightmares!

As I said, dreams are my favourite inspiration source. The best ones have you moving about a world which makes sense (often in a very illogical manner) and has it's own rules and barriers. And best of all, you believe it totally. I don't know if I'm alone on this, but I've had dreams before where some idea which would sound wacky to anyone in broad daylight is the foundation of the whole world I'm seeing at night.

Flying monkeys in the sky? Why of course. Anyone would be a fool to doubt that monkeys could fly. Just like anyone would be a fool to wonder why these dimensional vortexes keep opening and closing sporadically around us for no apparent reasons.

But dreams aren't a "one size fits all". Okay, you might see a good dream which is a great idea for a book plot. However, what kind of book would it be good for?

Picture courtesy of Chance Agrella
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There a different kinds of dreams, and not all of them will fit into every genre. The kind which I described above might be good for a Sci-Fi or "Alice in Wonderland"-ish novel, but I don't think it would do much for a romance or western. You see? What scene you see often also sets your genre. And honestly, some of my most favourites are nightmares.

"Why," I hear you say, "would anyone be mad enough to like nightmares?" Excellent question. To be honest, it's purely for the plot value. I like horror movies and stories myself. No, not the kinds with blood and guts thrown all over the place and no plot. The kinds where you have that unknown, creeping horror happening! Think of The Ring and Blairwitch Project. The stuff that doesn't have you cringing from the fake blood but rather adrenaline-shot from wondering "where is the monster?" type thing.

But alas, I find horror is becoming harder and harder to write and direct. Too many are falling for the "go with the obvious" approach. Result? You're sitting there bored or, even worse, laughing and wondering why you squandered a good tenner on the two-bit piece of rubbish in front of you now. Being so hitched onto my Fantasy writing as I am, I have tried and found that writing in other genres has me crippled. It takes more work, but it feels like the harder I try to "make it go right" the more awful the text becomes!

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Nightmares. This is where they truly come in handy. I feel  like nightmares come from the essence of fear itself, from something that actually makes you scared. And that's why they can make for some really interesting horror-story bases.
One of my favourite nightmares was one which involved a creature that looked remarkably like The Groke from Moomins. This thing, although very much a cartoon character, had scared the living daylights out of me as a kid. Especially this scene from the TV series! I mean look at it! This dark, hulking creature, that's supposed to freeze you to death if you touch it, standing motionless in front of you and just staring with eyes as white as floodlights!

Although I'd not watched the Moomin animations for years, one night I had this dream with a creature that morphed between human and Groke form and ate souls. Yes. Freaky. To me at least.
Needless to say that I felt like I'd gone through something of an adrenaline rush when I woke up. But now I had an image in my head that I knew was terrifying. Something different, but something that others too might find scary.

One of the key things about writing is not trying to please others but writing so that you are happy about your story. And I can think of no better gauge of horror-story-goodness than how fast it makes your blood race! And while there may be many people who aren't afraid of the Groke, there are still plenty of frightening things associated with the dark.

Are you a fan of horror?
What kind of sources do you draw your inspiration from for a good horror story?
Which movies and books do you think have got it right, and which ones failed the mark?

Activeness

And she's back!

Yes, I must apologise that I once again sunk into the deep dark void of where'd-she-go-ness. This time, I honestly have a good excuse for it which doesn't involve me being excessively lazy.
For once, I was actually truly so busy that sacrifices had to be made. Prioritising meant that blogging had to take a back seat for the moment or either sleep or deadlines just would not have happened. So thank goodness for half-terms and their existence, eh? So here is my recovery.

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But to be honest, I like being active. The last three weeks or so have been 'running around like a headless chicken' style, and yes when you're in the fray all you can think of is "Oh when will it end?" And then you finish your deadlines, you turn all your work in and turn around and say, "Ah, actually that was quite fun."

That's me. I have noticed that actually, during times of quite and lack of things to do, I have a tendency to fill that void with things to do. Have you by chance ever seen the movie "Yes Man"? Well, that's more or less me. Just like Jim Carey went about as "Carl" collecting phone numbers for Korean and guitar classes (and everything else), so do I find myself collecting odds and ends to do.
Yes I would like to learn to script software programming languages.
Yes I would like to join the art society.
Yes I would like to purchase and read the entire Game of Thrones series (along with 15 other titles).

The only problem is that what often escapes my infallible logic are the needs of higher-priority commitments. The result? A pile of incomplete activities and hobbies that have had to be benched in favour of the more urgent. Yes this bothers me to a degree. I don't like having a lot of incomplete activities lying around. But I've also noticed, that I truly dislike having no incomplete tasks on my hands.

Strangely but honestly, there is nothing quite so off-putting for me as the site of a clean and neat office desk with everything in the right places, everything new and untouched. Like a field of unbroken snow that has fallen overnight. It is not disturbing if I know I'm about to use that desk and that stationary. In that case I'm just enthusiastic because I love new stationary. :-) Just as if I were about to jump into that sheet of untouched snow. But it is if I'm supposed to keep that desk looking like that. For me, a desk like that symbols a desk that is hardly used, a place in which nothing happens. A messy work space (not chaotic but with stuff littered about) for me shows someone works there and does things. And I like having stuff to do!

Picture courtesy of Chance Agrella
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The best is when I can work those hobbies into every activities. :-) Tweeting right after I get up. Reading when I get home. Noveling on the weekends. Something of the sort. It's the variety of activities that makes life interesting. Seeing new faces, talking to new people, trying new things. And you find out things about yourself that surprise you.

I found out that I'm quite an avid reader. Before I started writing, I don't think I'd managed to read a single book through. I much perfered spending my free time with my game consoles. Then I realised I had to start reading fiction to get a feel for how other writers approach their trade. Now I find myself more eager to read a good book and having to work at playing games!

Oddly, being very busy helps me get everything done! It's when I have a lot of time on my hands that I don't see to manage to get anything finished on time. Same with my novels. NaNoWriMo especially seems to go better for me and have a higher chance of succeeding when I'm busy than when I'm not. Of course then there are just times when you are so busy you don't have time to get things done, but those are few and far between in comparison.

If someone came to me and asked for help because they couldn't seem to motivate themselves to get things done, I would recommend that they get more active. It's odd how it seems to work but it does. And busy times, when I look back on them, seem to be the happiest times I have. :-)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a book series to complete.

Your friendly neighbourhood Writer Monkey!

Postponed

Hi guys!

So unfortunately college work has overtaken me this week and I'll have to postpone today's post.

I'll try to get two posts done this week to catch up, probably will blog by Sunday latest. :-)

Thanks for staying patient, will write soon.

Monkey, out.

WT: Inspiration

Originally I wasn't planning to do another writing technique post until much later, but browsing the good blogs of fellow writers, I have had a stroke of inspiration. And thus, I wanted to make a post on inspiration as I haven't done one before.

Picture courtesy of Chance Agrella
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Now you might be thinking "why don't you just call this 'busting writers block' instead?" Well, this is because working at busting writers block and inspiration are actually a bit different. Not having ideas about what to write next is just one kind of writers block, there are lots more ways to get it. I'll tackle writer's block either as a single other post, or as  a collection of linked posts. But for now, let's get inspirational!

Ideas From The Environment
Have you ever written a novel, story, poem or just a scribble that someone read and liked, then said, "where ever did you get your idea from?"
I've had that experience, and the weird part is that I don't always have a good answer. "I just thought of it." I don't really register my sources of inspiration like that.

Picture courtesy of Chance Agrella

But often, some of the best ideas come from just looking around at the stuff around you. I reckon there's a whole art to just looking at the world around from a different angle than before.

My favourite way of getting inspiration from the environment is to take a walk. That's just it: take a walk. And look! Especially into places you've not been before or don't know well. My favourite places to walk are definitely forests and anywhere near water. I don't know why but it feels so mysterious somehow. My favourite (and definitely most inspirational) time to walk about and look at things has to be nighttime.

Night is really mysterious in my opinion. Again, I have no idea why, but when I'm surrounded by darkness it's somehow incredibly easy for me to think up endless amounts of ideas. Sunset and dusk are not far off from this benchmark either.

And high-up places, from where the view stretches out as far as the eye can see! Or suburbs on snowy nights with all the lights from apartment windows peeking through the falling haze. Or the quiet shades below silver birches beside a lake on a hot summer day.
Heh, I guess my Scandic background kind of influences this.

But basically, even in cities, there are a lot of different kinds of places to go and be in and look at. There's bound to be some place that you can draw inspiration and ideas from!

Inspiration From Dreams

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Perhaps one of the best places to get inspiration is from dreams. But there is a definite downside to this kind of inspiration: it isn't something you can necessarily summon up when you need it on command.

I love getting book ideas from dreams. Sometimes I see really out-of-this-world kinds of dreams that make Alice In Wonderland look ordinary (and I'm not exaggerating when I say that).
In fact, the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2011, titled 'Elda', was conceived in this manner.

I always plot my NaNoWriMo novel in October, ready for writing in November. That year, I was planning to do a story I had been thinking up called (temporarily) Angel City.

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But on the night between September 30th and October 1st I had a dream about a girl with magic powers trying to escape from an evil witch and white knight trying to capture said girl. The dream actually ended with the knight, very clearly screaming the name 'Elda' again and again. I woke up to that. And like that, boom!, my novel choice changed and I penned out Elda with little effort that month.

But this doesn't happen every night. More often than not I either don't see much of anything or then don't see anything special that I could write about. That's why, when I do see an interesting dream I jot it down right away.
Thing is, most dreams tend to fade from memory quite quickly. When I write them down, I also remember them better even if I lose the paper (oddly enough).

Even bringing bits and pieces from different dreams together is an idea. Keeping a notepad on your bedside table is advised.

Inspiration From Other Art

Picture courtesy of Jan Stýblo
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Let's face it, art is everywhere. Music you listen to, designs you see in clothes, novels, illustrations in books, movies. Some movies, music and images aren't really that amazing. Some are enough to leave you speechless or send you over the moon.

Sometimes when you read a book or listen to some music, you get an idea from that. Something in that piece inspires you, gives you a thought that then you can expand into something completely original.

Don't get me wrong, just copying what you see off another person's page falls on the side of plagiarism rather than inspiration. But say you read a book about a good romance, but you think it could have been a bit better another way. You can write your own, unique romance in the way you'd like one to be with your own characters.

Or you listen to a good jazz song and it makes you think of a 19th Century club in which your hero would begin his pained journey.
Or you see a movie and think that the way the main character's hair was animated would be perfect with another character of yours. Along these lines.

I myself draw a lot of inspiration from all three of these sources. For one thing, I like to have a playlist for each of my novels. Arkanos is definitely Nina Simone dominated, while Electrostatic Fantasy was laced with Tryad and This Is My Normal State.

I think inspiration is a unique thing and what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Someone might find inspiration in looking at cars, while for me cars are a rather dull subject. It's always a good idea to try something new.
You never know what you might find.

Do It On The Go

Ever feel that sensation of you have a lot to do and it's all due in a few days? Well, so do I. Coursework, hobbies, work reports, volunteering, blogging... But I'm actually really happy. One of my favourite things to do, also very useful in noveling, is multitasking. And honestly it's probably the most useful skill out there.

Think about it; Beerhoven probably composed several of his symphonies simultaneously; JK Rowling most likely had to juggle promotion of one Potter while still working on the next and plotting the one after; Shakespeare might have figured out the plot to his greatest plays while on the bog. Multitasking is everywhere. But is it really a good or bad thing.

It looks great on the CV for one thing. Nothing sounds more convincing than, "organised and skilled multitasker". Employer smiles sagely and knows he/she has struck gold.
But it's a bit of a hassle. There are a lot of things to handle simultaneously, oddly enough that being the whole principle behind it. And I don't know about you but when I hear the term I immediately think of a clown riding a unicycle, juggling plates and balancing an apple on his head, all while attempting to cross a tightrope to light a candle before the match between his teeth burns down to cinders. That's confusion right there! And that's often what I feel like I go through on the first few days of a new job.
My CV impressed employer gives me some tasks to complete and I faff about wondering where I find the paper clips.

Right now I feel like not just my writing, but my everything is relying heavily on some serious, but-kicking multitasking. I blog on the bus, I plot novels in class (during the boring bits), I think up ideas while I sleep. Every moment is precious.

But there's also a down side. I wasn't planning on writing the next novel in the Electrostatic series until November, but now I'm getting close to having the bare-bones of a plot down which means I'll be ready to write! I'm going to have to pen it before NaNoWriMo. Unbelievable.

But I just realised something. I haven't come up with a name for the series. I don't know about 'Electrostatic', that's a pretty long word to keep repeating. 'Electric' maybe?

Any suggestions?