It's here in case anyone wants to share weird dreams.

The three main characters were in it. For two of them, their magical natures were part of the original dream. The idea of there being parallel worlds--this one, based on technology, and another based on magic. Part of the plot: Characters having to hide out over here because another claimant to their inheritance was trying to kill them. A serial killer with a unique MO recruited to take care of them over here. In the original, they were somehow involved in politics on this side. One was a bodyguard.

I let the idea roll around for a couple of months. Every once in a while, I would open the file and jot down a new idea or change part of the original idea. I dropped the politics early. Don't know enough about that to write convincingly. But I kept the bodyguard idea. The male MC changed a lot. A lot of background for the milieu of the magical world was added. I even had little scraps of some of the scenes in that file.

Then about mid August, the thing started pulling on my sleeve and wouldn't leave me alone. I was stuck on the novel I was trying to write (still am), so I decided to give this one a try. It wanted to be written. The whole thing (well at least the bones of the story) poured out in about a month.

About a week and a half ago, I started a fast chapter exchange with OWASM on our first drafts--just looking for plot, pacing, and characterization for the most part. I now have a lot of things marked up for what I need to add (mostly) or change (a little) to add more flesh to the story and make it a lot richer. And I'm trying very hard to resist going in and making those revisions right now. I know I need to let it rest a little. But the darn thing is tugging at my sleeve again.

In the dream, when I was five, I road my tricycle to this shed in the far right corner of our yard. In real life, I had no such yard or house. My dad told me never to go near it, but I did. Werewolves busted out, and one scratched me. That dream continued like a long story throughout my life.

I started changing in a werewolf. Another pack started looking for me. I started to fall for one of the fmeales in that pack, and she tried to protect me. Her father wanted me dead. Another pack was protecting me, and they wanted me to join them.

There was a war between both packs.

Anyway. I developed this into a cool YA novel outline. I will write it one day. I have a few other novels I want to write first.

A few dreams gave me ideas for scenes in my first novel. I'm almost finished with my forth, but I can't recall if I got any ideas for it from dreams.

I had a dream where I was reading someone's mind got up and puked. That simple. I know doesn't sound like much but the dream was so powerful that I woke up and spend a lot of time contemplating the circumstances and the compulsion one often feels in dreams to do one thing over another for no good reason.

Why was I reading someone's mind? Why did I puke? Why did I feel compelled to do so?

Like most story ideas the first verion was junk. I trashed it including the original MC I thought of who was acting in that scene from my dream. (Actually my computer HD ate it, but in the long run that was a good thing).

The present version I am currently working on has a scene with a forced telepathic interrogation and the perpetrator (the new MC) does wind up having a seizure and puking after, but I was no longer thinking about that dream when I wrote it.

Dreams are good as imagery. My dreams are mostly visual images and feelings so generating good descriptive passages that convey emotion are a good use for them. Coming up with coherrent plots and explanations for things, not so much.

Here's one: In the dream I was watching some characters from a cartoon sitcom walk across my POV in a rather peculiar way...I got the idea that the third one to walk across, the lead character from the sitcom, wasn't actually that person / character, but a plant (as in planst and vegetables) pretending to be that person.

I woke up at that point, and liked the idea (which is, really, an old one), and lay in bed for a while before getting up, picking on the idea with my mind. (Fortunately it was my day off and I could do that---if I'd'a had to go to work I'd'a probably lost the idea somewhere.)

Now to make it a story:

---out goes the sitcom and the characters, first thing. I've sworn off (right now) writing fanfic, and I want to turn out something I can send in somewhere. (I kept a first name, which could come from anywhere.)

---out went the scene itself: it was the idea I liked, not so much what actually happened in my dream.

---I liked the play on words in plant-as-in-vegetable and plant-as-in-secret-agent. To a certain extent, I kept that in the story. (Also the ultimate final title: "Plant Girl.")

---I had to work out assorted details, the when and where (a colony world going into its seventh or eighth generation since first landing), the history and culture of it all, the biology of it (how could an exact copy of a person be made?), the plot (why would it happen?), the major characters, the minor characters, the usual...you get the idea.

---once I had all that---I had most of it before I got out of bed---I then wrote an outline, then I started writing the story.

I often have dreams in the same location. I't an amusment park, with rides and things, except its creepy. I've never really written about it, but maybe I should.

The closest a dream of mine came to any story was a nightmare I used to have when I was little that all the people in the world were gone and when I'd go out to the front yard, driverless cars kept swerving off the street and trying to run me over.

When they surrounded me, I realized I had psy-powers, so I focused all my energy, creating a huge blast that came from my body, throwing all the officers back. Then the remaining ones tazered me, but I was strong enough to rip the prongs off and throw them at the closest cop, who then droped to the dirt.

Then I got in a car that had no engine. It had no engine because some locals were about to race engineless cards down this winding road that was all downhill. A local tradition. The intelligent detective got in the car behind me. What a chase that was.

At the bottom of the hill, I stole some kids four wheeler. It was in a wooded area, and there was a race track for motocycles and four wheelers.

He ended up catching me, but I previously convinced the kids, he was the bad guy, so they helped me knock him out. I just needed more time to clear my name, and I couldn't do that in prison.

I think I could turn this into a nice thriller.

[This message has been edited by Architectus (edited September 26, 2009).]