Beautiful dreamers ... until you wake up

Okay, I'm not too proud to admit that I like naps. Actually, I adore them. With Boy headed for school at 6:30 am, in combination with my crazy evenings, I often don't get the ten, er, eight hours of sleep I need to feel fully functional. So occasionally, like this morning, I see Boy out the door and then head straight back to bed for a couple hours' make-up time. I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to waste work the rest of the day.

This morning was a little different. I had a really weird dream, so weird that it actually woke me up. It involved driving with Boy and getting lost (and I did get lost alone in my car this weekend, different story), finding a way back to a place I knew and finding it blocked, turning around, and then being forced to leave the car for some reason (the dream skipped that part) and go by bicycle, then foot, to escape a city via rail tracks. (The dream also skipped why we couldn't just take the train; they were in the station.) Anyway, Boy and I ended up in someone's workshop, being chased by zombies we didn't know were behind us. Pretty creepy, and yet, as I was dreaming, a little corner of my subconscious was saying, "Escaping a city chased by zombies? This would make an awesome story!"*

Now, there's no reason that dreams can't inspire good stories. One of my favorite writers of historical fantasy, Katherine Kurtz, has written over a dozen books after fleshing out a story (and an entire world) that she had in a dream. Of course, she likely had notecards right next to her bed to take down the dream in minute detail. My little corner of the subconscious is not that proactive. It whispers, "Oh, this would be an awesome story," yet it doesn't bother trying to wake me up to take notes. (It, too, probably needs its ten, er, eight hours of sleep.) So I have woken up, vaguely remembering the following:

• A girl's home is about to overrun by invaders? aliens? ecological disaster? She escapes to the town's underground library, where she will rebuild civilization with books. And everyone will be grateful and treat her like a goddess! (Why the library is hidden underground, I don't know. Why a smartypants should expect to be treated like a goddess is equally mysterious. And yet, while I was dreaming this, I thought it was the greatest idea ever!)
• There's something like a jungle gym in the sky. And people run around it to fight each other! They might fall off! But the winner will rule the kingdom! (Again, why in the sky? I don't know. And yet, my silly subconscious was telling me, "This is the greatest story ever!!!")

So I was reminded again this morning that while my subconscious might come up with an image or a situation that seems really unique and interesting, when you take away the immediacy of dreaming, by itself it's not very compelling. I've never been tempted to try any of these ideas because there's no story to them. More important, there's no character in them. Now, someday I might dream up a character who seems to fit in one of these situations, and that might spark something. But for now, I just take that little subconscious voice with a grain of salt. And vow I'll try to get to bed earlier tomorrow.

*Or it might, if Max Brooks hadn't beaten me to writing the definitive zombie book.

Writing for the inner child

So, you may be wondering, why does Diane write for children? Or you may not be wondering, as it's obvious to most people who know me that my inner 10 year old, the one who loves bad puns and fart jokes, isn't buried very deep. Actually, it's a question people don't seem to ask as much any more—not since Harry Potter became a phenomenon and made "children's books" both more respectable and more lucrative. (Ah, you may think, maybe she'll be the next J. K. Rowling? "I'd rather you'd been the first one," says dear hubby, anticipating early retirement.)

Still, it's a good question. Why, in addition to my inner 10 year old demanding to be heard, do I like to write for kids? Maybe it's because when I was a kid books were such an important part of my life. I loved nothing better than to immerse myself in a story, and some of those books have stayed with me even thirty years later. I was reminded of this at a writers' conference this month. Author/editor Patricia Lee Gauch was one of the speakers (a very good one, btw) and afterward she was available to sign books. I saw two women in their 30s come up to her with old, grubby copies of Christina Katerina and the Box, a picture book Gauch published in 1971. Even decades later, these readers were excited to meet the author of a book they loved to bits as a child. Now, what writer wouldn't want to have that kind of reaction to their work?

Your view of the world as a child can stay with you for a long time, I was reminded again during a visit to the doctor last week. My knee had started this annoying clicking and cracking—nothing horribly painful, but I wanted to make sure it was safe to train for taekwondo nationals next week. Amongst the cautions and exercises and advice the doctor gave me, she threw out this little comment: "... for sports people like you." Sports people like me? I was thrown off for a moment. I'm not a sports person. I was always one of the last to be picked for sports teams when I was growing up. I was a dork, my nose always in a book, not someone who joins teams or runs races. How could I be a sports person?

I guess people change. And for children (and our own childish self-images), that's not always an easy or obvious lesson to learn. But books do help—they make readers aware that there's a bigger world out there, filled with all sorts of intriguing possibilities. Maybe Max can tame his wild things. Maybe a klutz can grow up to be a black belt. Maybe anything can happen. So when I write for children, I see a world of possibilities to choose from, and hopefully I can show that same limitless world to readers. (That is, assuming I get some someday. My imagination tells me it's possible!)