Thursday, June 21, 2012

Ideas for stories: aka the answers to such dilemmas

Some time ago, I had a very strange dream,whereby upon awaking, a part of my real-life lopped over into my dream. I kept dreaming about a very loud annoying bell, and it turned into my alarm ringing. Or chiming, as it were, as my alarm is my cell phone, and the ring tone is a church bell pealing.
Ugly, I know, but such is my life in certain arenas.

Have you ever had that happen? It's something akin to surreal when your dream-state becomes your reality. Many great stories have come from dreamers/writers who brought their mind-meld ideas to the world of the waking. Situations where ideas for stories fall into our laps don't happen often, at least not for me, so this was just an invitation to dig in and do something with the free material. Never sniff at blessings even when they come from a dream. Do something with it! And if you cannot remember the entire thing, well, fudge it until you make it into something.

And of course, I did.

What came out was a short story I called the Case of the Missing Body, which I am offering at Amazon  as a serial story. I am going to be posting segments about once a month. It is totally YA (young adult) mystery, and safe for family consumption.

(Blatant Self Promo-- the first installment is up now for 99 cents! BUY IT NOW

I hope you will go out and get it, Murderers.

The cover art is mine own. For the first time in my writing life, I was author, editor, cover artist, and publisher. Thank you very much, Amazon, for allowing us to take control of our work. Oops, that's a post for another day.

1 comment:

Aaron Paul Lazar said...

How cool, Kim! That is great!

Yes, my first book in the Tall Pines series, FOR THE BIRDS, was entirely based on a dream about a little orangey-red bird that perched on my shoulder and rubbed her beak against my neck with affection, while my wife and I were driving her to a bird show in the Adirondacks at a huge bird-lovers resort, complete with a 3 story glassed-in aviary! How's that for details coming out of a very vivid dream?!

Ruby became a lead character in the mystery, and now it's up for best mystery 2012 at the FOREWORD book of the year awards (ceremony tomorrow, fingers crossed!). You are right about these dreams being gifts!!!

Thanks and have a great weekend.