Guest Post by Dominique Goodall 2 August, 2012

Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Henry David Thoreau

 The quote above, by Thoreau is something which I, as a writer, do embrace. More than once I’ve been woken up by a dream that seemed so great and realistic to me that I had to jot down details, certain that I’ll be writing about this awesome storyline – just because it’s been jotted down on my phone at 4am, however, doesn’t mean that it’ll make it.

 Writing about a dream is very personal, and sometimes you can be worried you’ll reveal too much about yourself in a dream…I’ve found that myself. At other times, I’ll be working on something intensely (as much as 7000 words a day) (that’s 28 pages) and I’ll dream something which ends up making the storyline evolve and grow tighter.

 I’ve developed characters in my dreams with fully fledged histories, names, appearances and their entire personalities. I swear that they have harassed me until I have written their plot twists – and considering in this story those characters are wolves, it wasn’t necessarily the best of things to have happening to me!

 The most notable time this happened was with a particularly rough scene from my upcoming novel, Echoes of Winter. I wrote the scene and almost straight after fell into bed (at 3am, with a 7:30am start). I got an hour sleep that night because the villain ‘insisted’ on showing me how the scene should have gone, and in the end I gave in, came back downstairs and wrote the scene as it was meant to be done.

 Now, I take note of dreams as a source of inspiration but I’ve learned that the best way forward with my dreams is to pick the scenes that will create the largest plot twist, or has the strongest bridge of the chasm. Sometimes I’ve found that the plotline failed, and other times it’s succeeded enough that I’ve managed to drag yet another story from my mind. I’ve had dreams which have made me doubt my sanity, dreams so scary I can’t even wake myself up…and then those horrible, horrible dreams that I don’t remember and yet…they leave me feeling as though I’m missing something vital, even when I’m not.

 I’ve tried everything with my dreams to make them as inspirational as I can, though that is mainly by filling my bedroom with wolf stuff (as my series is about wolves). I’ve learned that it doesn’t always help, but for the time being, I’m happy enough with my dreams. Until the time I dream about spiders again…or the hand that eats people…or even the dream where I’m sitting in a space ship with wolves on either side of me!

 I’ve even had dreams so vivid that I’ve been able to make photo-manipulations of them with the aid of stock – and they are normally a great help in themselves, as long as I can find the right kind of image and work it into a background properly.

 I would love to know what dreams you have had that have influenced something about your writing/creative process!

Have you ever had a wild dream that has made you sit up and say woah?

Or have you had a nightmare so bad that it haunts you until now?

*****

 I answered these questions and you can in the comments below.

I dreamed of my novella The Alien Deal. It could turn into a full novel, but right now I have the outline. I dreamed that I was the main character so I know it will be written from her point of view.

I have crazy dreams all the time and I always sit up and tell my boyfriend about it. I should write them down more often.

Anytime I dream of a spider or multiple spiders it haunts me because I am terrified of them.

Thank you so much for being here today Dominique!!

Dominique Goodall is the author of the soon to be released Echoes of Winter, book one in the Seasons of the Wolf series and a self-confessed wolf addict. She has currently been published in two anthologies by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing and is currently working on getting herself better known by sending in manuscripts for as many different anthologies as she possibly can.

As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, she never will be able to count her wolf stuff- there’s nothing left for her to be truly able to collect without her own home.

A wolf. A destiny. And only one war to stand in his way.

When Convel leaves his birth pack, he didn’t expect to end up in a war against cougars. As he gathers his strength about him as well as new pack-mates, he is also confronted by Humans – once believed to be mostly dead.

He isn’t alone in his endeavours. He doesn’t know it, but Singer and her rag-tag ‘pack’ are racing towards him for the climax in his life so far. With Sage, the elderly lynx, helping to guide him, will he be successful or will the traitor in his life get what they want?

She can be friended on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/WaterSinger

Her author page on Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dominique-Goodall-author/250907358312446

The page for Echoes of Winter is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Echoes-of-Winter/355235744499607

Her twitter name is: https://twitter.com/#!/DomGoodall

and her blog can be found here: http://dominiquegoodall.wordpress.com/

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