Monday, October 18, 2010

Ever have one of those dreams where…

You feel yourself slipping back into consciousness and a part of you screams and tries to claw your way back into the fantasy because it was just that good.  You open your eyes with a groan and stare at the ceiling.  Not wanting to forget, unable to let go, the blu-ray of your brain replays the scenes over and over again, committing them to memory.  Stumbling through the necessary activities of the day, the dream whispers in the back of your mind, haunting you.    
It happened to me over a year and a half ago.  Finally, out of desperation to get the images out of my head, I did the only thing I knew to do.  I flew to CVS to purchase my first Mead notebook since college and with a possessed fervency, I scribbled down everything I could remember, and interestingly, the few new scenes that my brain had conjured up.  And again, I did what I always did, I tucked the notebook away, random scenes and an unfinished story. 
And then I rediscovered my love for reading (see post Thank you Stephenie Meyer).  I looked up Stephenie Meyer’s webpage, amazed that authors had these things now.  I read about how she came up with Twilight.  She was a stay at home mom of three kids who woke up one morning with a dream stuck in her head that she couldn’t get out.  And after not writing for a really long time, amongst all the mommy things she had to do, she sat down and wrote Twilight.  As I read her story, tears ran down my face. It was exactly what had happened to me.     
So, for the first time, I opened Word 2007 on the laptop my husband had bought me for Christmas, the absolute best gift of my entire life (though I’m sure if he knew what a nut his wife would turn into, he’d never have bought it for me in the first place) and I did something I swore I’d never do: I wrote by typing.  I had always been an old fashioned pen and notebook kind of girl.  But it didn’t take me long to fall in love with the click click click of the keys…the speed at which my words could flow… the ease of erasing a “what drugs was I on when I wrote that?” moment.  I wrote like a woman possessed.  And I have probably written almost every single day since then. 
I even took a dream I had had back when I was nineteen, one that had stayed in my brain all these years, and I completed my first book in three months.  Just like Stephenie.  The first three chapters of that book currently sit with an editor and the waiting game is on to see if a full submission request will be made.  And I am now back, working on book based on the dream that started it all.  A book that may have remained a few random scenes, jotted down on a notebook, tucked in the top of my closet, if I had never looked up Stephenie Meyer’s website.  And so for the second time in my life I say, thank you Stephenie Meyer.  If I am ever blessed enough to be published, I owe you a huge thank you note, perhaps one with a field of wildflowers on it…   
   -Suzi Ryan                        
                                                                                

3 comments:

  1. only the best laptop with the most screwed up user interface for you, love....

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  2. so inspiring suzi, praying like crazy it gets published, can't wait to hear!

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