Musings

Yesterday morning, I woke from a vivid dream about zombies. It's rare for me to remember my dreams in any real detail, but every once in a while I will wake unexpectedly from some kind of night time theatre and think what a great story and, before going back to sleep, will resolve to write it down later. The only trouble is that in the light of day the idea will seem less fantastic. The idea loses its shine, and in days filled with boredom or frustration the whole thing gets forgotten.

But this one is different.

In my dream was a girl I haven't spoken to, or seen, in forever -- and in my dream her brother was dead. If she has an older brother, I couldn't tell you, and further more if she even does I seriously doubt if he is a heroin addict, like I saw. Both of these points were fairly incidental in the dream to the fact he was dead, but to make matters worse he had come back from the dead. I've described the idea as a kind of Night-of-the-Living-Dead-meets-Pet-Semetary.

And more or less, that's all there was to the dream, but the idea has set me off. Combining fragments of previous works -- like years ago the short story I once wrote about a bereaved boyfriend accidentally bringing his girlfriend back from the dead, and a poem (that started life as a song, back when I could play) about a girl repeatedly returning from the dead, unharmed and with no knowledge of what had happened to her. It sounds like I have some kind of obsession with the idea, but really all these things were written at completely different times and from different inspirations.

It's a funny thing, inspiration, or for me creativity, because I don't feel it comes from me. Where my creativity comes from, I don't know, but I can remember writing late into the night, just writing to get a story finished but not knowing what was going to be written until it was on the page. Like it was coming from some muse outside of myself. The same with poetry, lines or verses would come to me whole, and I'd feel like all I was doing was merely taking them down.

This story idea is completely different from my planned masterpiece about arson, revolution, art and love all bound together by the symbol of fire. I'd like to think there would be a way to combine the two ideas, but I really don't see it. The first thing is just to write this damn thing, as mentioned I have the ideas for three separate parts, which would need three distinct voices. I just need to sketch out some framework for myself, a scaffolding to stretch the ideas over as I work on them.

Fortunately, I've got the day off work today -- since I have to work on Saturday -- so aside from being über-productive and going to the gym, getting a haircut, ironing shirts for work and buying some food, I also need to write my masterpiece.