Hey there everyone. I hope that you all are enjoying your weekend. The novel that I have been writing is at the halfway mark. “The Sacrifice” was a story that I felt needed to be told because it came from a place that I don’t usually find my ideas. The story came from a dream I had a few months ago, and it seemed so real that I felt that my main character really wanted his story to be told. In my dream, he was being tormented by his Uncle in the 1950’s on the front lawn and his Uncle threw a knife at him and it landed in his eye. But strangely enough, it did not kill him. He does get his revenge though but I won’t say how you’ll have to read the book when it comes out. I decided not to use the knife in the eye scene in the story because it is just too brutal for this type of story.

I normally don’t remember my dreams and nightmares. But when I do I can come up with some very interesting things. Some of my dreams would make great books. Many years ago, I dreamed that I was in my childhood home all alone and suddenly everyone disappeared. I was the last person left in the whole city. I was so terrified. Then a spaceship came and soldiers appeared at my door and busted in to capture me. But I fought back and I refused to let them take me. That dream seemed so real. It scared me. I wasn’t writing novels at the time, just screenplays and poetry but if I had that dream today I would have surely turned it into a science fiction novel.

Dreams are great for getting weird ideas that are not part of the mainstream which seems to go over big these days. I know that I personally enjoy unusual stories that have a great plot twist. Something you would never see on television or even the movies. Take the Twilight book series by Stephenie Meyer:

Once a stay-at-home mom, Stephenie says the idea for “Twilight” came to her in a dream.

“It was two people in kind of a little circular meadow with really bright sunlight, and one of them was a beautiful, sparkly boy and one was just a girl who was human and normal, and they were having this conversation. The boy was a vampire, which is so bizarre that I’d be dreaming about vampires, and he was trying to explain to her how much he cared about her and yet at the same time how much he wanted to kill her,” Stephenie says.

“It really captured my imagination.” That dream became Chapter 13 of “Twilight.”

CNN

For those who can remember their dreams, it’s a good idea to keep a pencil and a piece of paper by your bed so that you can write down the dream immediately before it leaves your brain. Dreams have a way of making you feel like you’ve just had the experience of a lifetime depending on how bizarre they are. Don’t worry about dreams of having sex or going out in public naked. Those wouldn’t make for good stories. I few years ago, I dreamed that I was a great warrior fighting demons. It felt so real and there are stories with that type of theme.

The bible says that dreams don’t mean anything but I disagree. They can manifest in many ways. They can reveal hidden phobias and fears that we don’t talk about or are willing to admit to ourselves. Those are the stories that are the most difficult to tell and the ones that I want to read. Until next time…

“Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little.”

― Holley Gerth