Writing the Dream

The Concept

Some of my favorite pieces of literature growing up were fairy tales, fables and legends. I always wanted to know how such stories were thought up. Was it just some guy out in a forest, tripping out of his mind? He looks over and hallucinates seven little men (dwarfs), and a dead chick (white as snow) confined in a glass case? Suddenly he believes that he’s some sort of prince, and all he has to do is kiss her corpse and she’ll awaken?

Or was it truly parents making up bedtime stories to get their kids to behave? I’m not sure we’ll ever truly know the way a lot of these stories came about, or if they were changed during someone else writing them down, (brother’s grim). Though I do know that many of the writings I’ve read from this genre caught my imagination. I recently went back to challenge my imagination and writing abilities to come up with my own tales or fables or legends or whatever you would like to call them. I was thinking about this concept one night, right before I went to bed. Now some may believe that dreams have no real meaning; however, I was significantly inspired while I slept.

The Theme

In my dream, I opened my eyes to a wondrous sight. The moon was enormous in the sky shinning brightly along with stars that seemed more aware of their existence, that they weren’t just matter. They were more like children playing in the sky, shinning and showing off their shimmer. They flew around as if Peter Pan had possessed their spirit, and they kept the midnight sky lit up like the angels in the Christmas story.

Down a ways, off the path was a willow tree, rooted by a pond filled with glowing bulbs of light. Essence escaped from its waters and faded away into the night. Beneath the willow was a man, a silhouette in the shadows of the tree. When I approached him, he was welcoming and I could tell he held great wisdom about this place. He said to me “Welcome to the Dream Gates,” and then as I sat down in front of him, he began to tell me about the stars in the sky. He told me that each one had a story, some were blissful and some were tragic.

As I gazed upon one, I began writing. Then when the story was finished, I began gazing upon another one and so on. What I noticed was that each story didn’t have a clear ending, or at least not to me. None of the stories began with “Once upon a time,” or ended with “they lived happily every after.”

So within the design of the cover, I realized I wanted the reader to focus on the scene and not the people sitting underneath the tree. I purposely left out the wise man and myself, just for the sake of the reader. I wanted the design to also inspire those who read these stories to place themselves within the scene.

Writing the Conceptualized Theme 

It’s pretty awesome when you can wake up and remember your dreams. So far I’ve written four complete short stories and created the cover for the book of short stories I want to put together. But what I want to do is to connect these stories somehow, as if they are a montage of artwork, (a montage of writings). I’ve never done this before with short stories. So designing this and writing this out should prove a nice challenge.

Note: If you are interested in reading some of the short stories from this book; I’ve posted another blog for putting together poetry and short stories. This link is also added to the top of this blog called (Where Dreams Survive). Go there and click on the label tab to sort out poetry from short stories. Feel free to leave comments…enjoy.