How to be a writer, #35790000: Wake at 4 am from terrifying dream Open laptop, add new and terrifying scene to WIP Go back to sleep Wake up again, read new and terrifying scene with no memory of having written it WTF, subconscious Tea - ThreadSky

joannechocolat.bsky.social • 198 days ago

How to be a writer, #35790000:
Wake at 4 am from terrifying dream
Open laptop, add new and terrifying scene to WIP
Go back to sleep
Wake up again, read new and terrifying scene with no memory of having written it
WTF, subconscious
Tea

Comments

dinodinoinleo.bsky.social•198 days ago

Good lesson 😁😁

francishayden.bsky.social•198 days ago

Somebody else wrote it.

You’re welcome

kiwisnowy.bsky.social•198 days ago

Sounds like a dream.

elisabethhobbes.co.uk•198 days ago

I never get as far as writing scenes but I do scribble notes. The most recent one simply said ‘freshwater mermaid’ 🤷‍♀️

mxtippex.bsky.social•198 days ago

Extra oddness for when you write a scene-in-dream involving characters you haven't come up with yet. 'Mark asks Ahmed to go with Janet to graveyard....' Um. Sorry, who are these people?

captainmaiel.bsky.social•198 days ago

Awesome! 👏🏻 dreams are a great resource!

elthri.bsky.social•198 days ago

Can so relate to this… I have a rolling notes page on my iPhone which must be a mile long.

vanres74.bsky.social•197 days ago

@joannechocolat.bsky.social
Thanks!

456e-09set24 self-recognition; @vanres74
rewriting allows
recognition

however
like any pharmaco
works for good n' evil

not
always,
, almost, never,
, could understand
predominant
terrifying
outcome

https://vanres1974.blogspot.com/2024/11/456e-09set24.html

periscopewatch.bsky.social•197 days ago

Or you could have a notepad and pen by bed ... more sleep then, knowing the idea is safely captured !

loridegman.bsky.social•198 days ago

It's the worst when the scene is for a rhyming picture book WIP!

docpaperback.bsky.social•198 days ago

I had this all the way through my thesis!

man0words.bsky.social•198 days ago

Sadly, I tend to lose the moment, searching myopically for my glasses...

the-artur-faye.bsky.social•198 days ago

Bonus points if what you wrote at 4am sounds like gibberish😂

wearetheunforgiven.com•198 days ago

Congratulations on actually capturing it though! The one time I thought I’d managed to write down an idea I’d gotten while asleep, I realized the next morning, after searching for it, that I’d actually just made the *motions* of writing *on my pillow* and gone back to sleep content and satisfied

k1rsty.bsky.social•198 days ago

Is this what happened while writing ‘blue eyed boy’? I’m currently 4/5 of way through & increasingly confusedbut I’m confident (hopeful 🤞) you’ll have devised a good ending…?!

elisabethe.bsky.social•198 days ago

I could try that but I doubt people would want to read the absolute horror my mind creates

richardsreflection.bsky.social•198 days ago

OMG, I'm a writer.
Every night I wake up screaming due to nightmares caused by cPTSD.

After clearing my mind of the horror I write. Some of my best stuff comes from my early morning writing.

delevenz.bsky.social•198 days ago

This makes me want to start writing again but take it seriously. Of everyone I've known and talked to about it; I have the most frequent, most vivid, most reoccurring environments, last days (in dream), have dozens of memorable characters, and series-like events.

Dream journal #473 starts tonight!

rabbitpellets.bsky.social•198 days ago

"Recurring environments:" I'm convinced I have a whole coherent parallel life in "my dream world." I've been in the middle of a movie like dream & reflected to myself, "Oh yeah those people, places & events I repeatedly return to in dreams, they exist but only here on the dream side."

delevenz.bsky.social•198 days ago

Interesting, is your dream world more realistic or more fantasy? Because mine are mostly realistic, with a tendency to venture into sci-fi scenarios.

Like my last one was me being teleported to a different planet with different physics and a sort of academy that was training people within dreams...

delevenz.bsky.social•198 days ago

So that they're training and knowledge and memory was implanted in their subconscious to fulfill a mission in waking reality.

I could also describe the environment with exquisite detail, from the type of leaves on the trees to the outfits everyone was wearing.

I love dream talk!

rabbitpellets.bsky.social•198 days ago

I'll dream of monumental landscapes & structures, the latter often devoid of people, a ruin, or have water running thru them that invite Jungian interpretation (& bring to mind "The Martian Chronicles.") Once a temple had a circle divided by a vertical line, 1/2 emmitting fire, right out of myth. 1/

delevenz.bsky.social•198 days ago

For fun I had an LLM rewrite my notes from a recent dream. It's on my feed if anyone is interested. It's not really the direction I'm going, but I thought it'd be neat to see how it translated my notes into a familiar writing style.

Dream journal and more writing is my priority today after work!

delevenz.bsky.social•198 days ago

I'll see if I can dig up some of the writing I did when I was keeping a dream journal.

What's crazy is some of the sets and characters have been around for over 20 years. I vividly remember my first one being in an almost jungle like marsh. I revisit it yearly!

Thanks for sharing!

rabbitpellets.bsky.social•198 days ago

Science fiction makes up only a small part of my reading interest, tho if this analytical engineer were ever to try writing fiction, science fiction would be my best hope - unless dream recitation becomes its own genre.

Paying attention to dreams helps one remember & may even improve them.

joannechocolat.bsky.social•198 days ago

Both, tbh...

adsullivan.bsky.social•198 days ago

I thought I was the only one who did this

sarahlorrainesmall.bsky.social•197 days ago

😂 also love when it’s a scene that’s an entire book idea-two currently in the wings👩🏼‍💻🪽

katarzynaokelo.bsky.social•198 days ago

Where do I subscribe to this sleepwriting feature?

chiomatic.bsky.social•197 days ago

Or wake up again and read the absolute gibberish you spoiled your sleep for because you absolutely had to get down at 4am.

Tell me I'm not the only one? 🤦🏾‍♀️🙊

scholar57.bsky.social•198 days ago

Sounds interesting.

Even if you can't recall writing the scene, it will feel fresh to your mind when you read it to yourself.

Personally, I find I write best when I wake early as well.

jpontherun.bsky.social•198 days ago

It's almost as if your subconscious was a ghostwriter... literally.

nerdjitsunurse.bsky.social•198 days ago

I love those dreams. I have two ideas fleshed out for future projects hastily put into a note for later use after waking from a dream. Trying to capture the details as you’re revisiting consciousness is a delightful challenge.

lotustrippin.bsky.social•198 days ago

A letter arrives “We have been waiting thank you for your sacrifice the world will finally know peace “.

christopher-hervez.bsky.social•198 days ago

In the spirit of "Four Yorkshiremen", I am woke at 4:50am by a spaniel and a retriever. They're unerring and how they know the time is a mystery. They want their breakfasts and don't take no for an answer. I brew some green tea. I stand staring at the kettle with no idea of who I am. What's a dream?

joannechocolat.bsky.social•198 days ago

😂

willlevith.bsky.social•198 days ago

How did you know?!

wurdsmyth.bsky.social•198 days ago

Some of those scenes you can’t remember writing are truly wild rides!

srmorton.bsky.social•198 days ago

Same

aloiz.xpulseuniverse.com•198 days ago

Fun fact I had a wonderful dream uh before last night and it gave me a great idea to write a new book

joanneleva.bsky.social•198 days ago

Sounds familiar

alyharry.bsky.social•198 days ago

Oh thank God I thought it was just me....my other habit is going back loads of chapters, late at night & tweaking bits only to find the next time I reread it I've clearly been " at it".. 230,464 words in, clearly a weird system that works but yes often causes a " when did I write that " moment...🤔

jerseymick.bsky.social•198 days ago

You’ll never get Tea Leoni for the movie

oldandcrippled.bsky.social•198 days ago

How do you find a publisher? Do you have to get a literary agent first?

joannechocolat.bsky.social•198 days ago

Not always, but it helps. Big publishers tend to deal with literary agents, rather than authors.

oldandcrippled.bsky.social•197 days ago

Thank you x

varemaras.bsky.social•196 days ago

@stephenking.bsky.social had written an amazing guide to new writers back in 1981, "Danse Macabre", I hope you find it useful!

oldandcrippled.bsky.social•196 days ago

Thank you x

grannyalex.bsky.social•198 days ago

I wake up screaming to go through my to- do list. It's not just writers
😀

aphello.bsky.social•198 days ago

^decipher typos

jeccacups.bsky.social•198 days ago

See when I do this, I read it later and the scene I imagined to be so profound in my sleep ends up making absolutely no sense 🤣 It feels so poignant in the moment, but it ends up just being a weird story about Dracula’s grandpa being a different kind of bat or something.

raeradford.bsky.social•198 days ago

You've nailed it!

authorchloehammond.bsky.social•198 days ago

My books & short stories are all based on nightmare scenes from an overly vivid imagination.

bernp.bsky.social•198 days ago

it was ever thus with the writers lot
When instead of a notebook
to collect the ideas all you
find beneath the bed is a chamber pot

comrade-adam.bsky.social•198 days ago

‪
How to be a journalist
Wake at 4 am from terrifying dream
Open laptop, scan BBC news
Realize not a dream
Write comment on terrifying scene
Scotch
Try to sleep...

maggiesmomma.bsky.social•198 days ago

😅😅😅

timothyah.bsky.social•198 days ago

Had a dream like that. But, fell back to sleep before I could write anything. Regret it now.

jlmatud.bsky.social•198 days ago

This just happened to me in my dream: I was riding my hovercraft out of town for the first time. It was a motorcycle-style vehicle, with no fairings or coverings as those of cars. As I slowed down to admire a river turning below, a wasp-like insect made a bee line towards me and alighted in my neck.

afterthetrumping.bsky.social•198 days ago

Real writers don't tea!

joannechocolat.bsky.social•198 days ago

Ya think? 😂

afterthetrumping.bsky.social•198 days ago

Tea over terror?
Fomentation or fermentation?

Let me brew over this for a bit.

laglynnwrites.bsky.social•198 days ago

Welcome to my 🌎

foothillrounders.bsky.social•198 days ago

I do this with songwriting. It’s always fun to find an Apple note with some pretty dang good lyrics I have no memory of writing 🤣

smarple.bsky.social•198 days ago

Change it up! Swap tea for coffee.

joannechocolat.bsky.social•198 days ago

You really don’t know me, do you? 😂

smarple.bsky.social•198 days ago

Nope. Just like the old days of citizens band radio.

unklebiff.bsky.social•197 days ago

“WTF, subconscious!”

Mmmm, Tea. 😂🤙

tdauthors.bsky.social•198 days ago

Omg that's my co author. I'll just go in and go wtf 💀 like can we not 🤣🤣🤣

1215deb.bsky.social•198 days ago

That is scary.

silverknight1966.bsky.social•197 days ago

Done that

eiming.bsky.social•198 days ago

I only know one...

impeachykeen.bsky.social•197 days ago

I have written things to my support groups site. It is freaky and terrifying when I don’t remember writing whole entire posts. Then I freak out wondering if I offended anyone! LOL

sophieclaire.bsky.social•198 days ago

Is it any good though?

commamonger.bsky.social•198 days ago

😵‍💫 Ah, glad it's not just me. My worst example was getting quite wasted about 30 years ago and woke up to pages of indecipherable scrawl that culminated in "ELECTRICITY" in giant letters across the final page, circled and with arrows pointing to it. 🫤

mataraykween.bsky.social•198 days ago

Fantastic! The subconscious making itself conscious is something I aspire to achieve 🥹

cass008.bsky.social•197 days ago

Mmmmm

philip-mach.bsky.social•198 days ago

Chocolat author. Nice.

Far better connections here than ex-Twitter.

philip-mach.bsky.social•198 days ago

As long as the 4am text isn’t gibberish…

bredodd.bsky.social•198 days ago

i think this is the plot of alan wake

kayemclaren.bsky.social•197 days ago

My favourite part of writing is tea.

helenafiction.bsky.social•198 days ago

I don't wake up enough to write the scene, i just leave terrifying notes to myself on my phone that i don't remember writing 😅

flsseaton.bsky.social•198 days ago

Sadly, my terrifying dreams are about having to wee and not being able to find a toilet only to wake up really,really having to pee and not able to go back to sleep. Not a page turner.

joannechocolat.bsky.social•198 days ago

😂

theejupiterian.bsky.social•197 days ago

definitely have written up my dreams as writing drafts lol

dondelion.bsky.social•198 days ago

That's how Keith Richards wrote the legendary riff to "Satisfaction":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(I_Can%27t_Get_No)_Satisfaction#Recording

justinleeanderson.com•198 days ago

First read ‘subconscious tea’ and that might be the most British thing ever. 😂

andeeharry1.bsky.social•197 days ago

oops, save function is birch sometimes

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