I woke up in the night and I had trouble falling back to sleep. It happens sometimes. I cannot remember the dream that caused me to wake up, but once awakened my mind wouldn’t shut off. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t stressed out, or anything. There wasn’t a particular thing which kept me awake. Although, sometimes it is stress, or it’s something I am fretting over; however, not this particular time. In-fact, I don’t recall anything which would have kept me awake.
Usually when I awake, it is because the dream was weird or because of a nightmare. Sometimes, go to my laptop and jot things down in the hopes I could write about it later – This is what I am doing now except never jot the idea down, but I managed to remember my thought that could write about the fact that I awoke and that this occurs sometimes.
As a writer, jotting down ideas as they come to you is an important tool in an author’s arsenal. I am sure that many a horror or fictional stories derived from ideas from the author’s nightmares, or dreams. Dreams/nightmares are one of my tools. Another tool is riding transit. For some reason, I write better or more easily while taking transit. One other tool I use is observing my surroundings and watching people. This comes easily to me because I have always been a “people watcher.” I watch people while sitting in a cafe, or on a bench or the grass at a park or at the beach.
This craft of writing is strange.
—Robert Confiant 17 April 2019
