I’ve been heart deep in a writing project of late, a great relief this blasted icy winter when staying positive has been a monumental challenge.
On my drive home from work I often silence the car radio, not to avoid the news, but because my brain is busy thinking about WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN when I get to my desk.
After shedding my work clothes for cozy home clothes and having a quick dinner, I sit down with my impatient imaginary friends and listen while they tell me WHAT’S HAPPENING in our story.
I write until it’s time to sleep, when my characters hop into bed with me and insinuate themselves into my dreams, whispering though the night about WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN NEXT.
Lately, my characters’ voices have been insistent enough to wake me in the middle of the night.
IF THIS HAPPENS, it’ll amp up the suspense.
IF THAT HAPPENS, you’ll open the door for new suspects.
I’m not one of those people who keeps a notepad on my bedside table for jotting down my middle-of-the-night inspirations. That feels premeditated (and my handwriting is bad enough when I’m wide awake). Having ridden this particular creative roller coaster before, I’ve learned to trust that the important stuff will still be there in the morning.
HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN?
In the shower, I pan the night’s dreams for gold, sometimes feeling as though I spent the night watching a film starring people sort of like my characters who get involved in terrifying/improbable/hilarious plots that don’t seem to have anything to do with my current project.
But dreams are, of course, not literal. Decoding them forces me to dig beneath the surface and excavate the story I’m really trying to tell.
Blogmates and other writers/creatives who read MCW, does this happen to you?
Brenda Buchanan sets her novels and short stories in Maine. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology BLOODROOT: BEST NEW ENGLAND CRIME STORIES 2021 and received an honorable mention in BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE 2022. Her story “Assumptions Can Get You Killed” appeared in WOLFSBANE: BEST NEW ENGLAND CRIME STORIES 2023 and “Cape Jewell,” was published in the 2025 edition of the same anthology, SNAKEBERRY.
This spring, Brenda’s short story “Crime of Devotion” will appear in MYSTERY MOST SENIOR, an anthology published in connection with the 2026 Malice Domestic conference.
Yes yes Brenda – for me it’s that (well it seems that it is but then sleep and how the brain uses it is a mystery to me)- it’s those post 3 am dreams – I tend to wake at 3 am, decide it’s too early to get up and tell myself to go back to sleep. I start to feel myself fall back into the mizzle and – clarity is sometimes waiting for me to take a walk with it – those are great moments in dreamland.
Great moments in dreamland, indeed. It is a fascinating to realize the brain is working away while we sleep, especially in times of intensive creativity.
Dog walks are my most productive times. But I do sometimes wake in the middle of the night with a nugget of something I’ve been twisting with all answered for me in a neat little package.
I don’t have a dog, but my regular beach walks are productive for me as well. Somehow my brain knows to tune into writing while I’m walking along the shore.
I agree. For me, it’s car time. I travel a lot for work and my home is always noise and chaos and doing the things. Did I really agree to take my kids skiing? Who has basketball practice? Is there hitting practice in the secret room of The Pickler? Did we actually buy Julian a birthday present? Who had conferences on Thursday? During those drives I have 3 to 5 hours of uninterrupted time with my brain. Last night, it snowed so much and the sun was out and the sky was this beautiful color of periwinkle and the pine branches were so heavy with the snow. And then I started thinking about how it was so beautiful but how there is also so much heaviness. And it was just the detail I needed for the scene I’d been wrestling with at the end of this WIP. *Chef’s Kiss.*
Car time! Yes! As I said, without music for me when I’m needing to think about WHAT IS HAPPENING in my current project.
Absolutely. Sometimes when I wake in the night I’ll have a realization. My most recent major one was realizing the POV character in a couple was the wrong one. To your point, Brenda, it seemed important in the night, but only when I sat down to write and it was still there was I sure it was the right move. And shower time? Pure gold. Not infrequently, I’ll take a shower just to solve a problem in my current narrative. Works pretty much all the time!
Sometimes I think my sleeping brain is alerting me to the places in my stories that need more work. I like your example: it didn’t occur to you to make a POV change until a dream opened the door, and the next day you walked through that door. Kind of amazing.
I WISH that happened to me. The most my brain does in terms of writing while I’m asleep is to point out mistakes in what I’ve written so far–no small thing, and I’m grateful for it, but I like yours better. 😁
Oh, my sleeping brain warns me when I’m headed down a dead-end road as well. As you say, that is good, even if not feel-good.
Oh, yes! Not often during sleep, my great ideas tend to fizzle betwee, ‘I’ll remember that” and waking unless I get up and write them down, but in the shower, yep. In the days when I had an all-tile bathroom, I kept a grease pencil on the shower rack to scribble my inspirations on the wall.
Somehow I can hold on to the insistent dreams until morning, and I love, love, love your idea of a grease pencil in the shower!
I do my best “writing” while running on desert trails, but I did dream the antagonist character in my ninth book. I saw her in a specific setting (Damariscotta, Maine, although my books are primarily set in New Mexico) heard her name, and saw her pause to look back as she realized she was being watched. I used her, and that moment, and yes–Damariscotta.
That’s a great example, Amber! Good for you!
When I’m deeply immersed in story, that hour before I wake up is often an hour of plotting and composition and it’s there waiting for me when I hit the keyboard.
Kate
Yes, that magic, dozing hour when the brain just barely shifts into gear. If I can maintain that state long enough, it’s amazing where it will take me.
Last night I woke up at 2:30 with the idea for a new final chapter in my WIP. (Yes, that one!) Now my entire life is ruined. 🤬 Stay tuned.
Sorry, Sandy . . .