I was at a preview screening of “The Fourth Kind” Tuesday night and it scared the hell out of me. Wait, actually, I think I scared the hell out of myself. You see, I have this thing called an imagination, which takes whatever I see before me or think I see and turns up the volume about 100 decibels.
It’s annoying, really. That imagination leads to many sleepless nights when I my brain just will not shut off. BUT as most writers will tell you, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That imagination is what helps us do what we do.
I tell writers all the time that no one can tell a story the way they do. Not only will it be in their voice, but also from their imagination. My son, and his new girlfriend, were with me. They agreed the film was creepy, but the way the saw it was in a different way than I did.
I refuse to spoil anything, but suffice to say, the movie is open to interpretation. As is anything you write. Think about it. What we do is art. It is open to interpretation. People can view it from whatever prism of experience they have.
That prism of experience holds true for the writer/artist too. Everything that has gone before and made us what we are today, comes out on that page. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked through my personal issues with a book and all of that came from life experience. Many times I didn’t even know I was doing it at the time.
I could tell you to all sit down and write a story about a lonely ghost in a New Orleans mansion and each and everyone of you would come up with some different. It would be different in tone, style pacing and your imagination is what would bring it to life.
I don’t know about you, but I dream — a lot. I have vivid dreams. Sometimes they are scary, happy, or sexy. When I can I write them down. If I’m in the middle of a book, I mean hard core in the trenches, I dream my books. I have to make sure that I always have a notebook by the bed to write down scenes or notes about the characters, because they talk to me in my dreams.
Do you dream?
Have you ever had a dream about aliens?
I have. I think I was about 11, and I was so scared, because it felt real, that I slept on the end of my parents bed the next three nights. To this day I can remember the weird drilling sound. A kind of hazy light and weird things touching me. I was afraid to open my eyes, when I did I bolted from the bed to the hallway (that was a bit of a leap) and to my poor parents’ bed.
Now, part of that was I was an only child and slept by myself. I didn’t have a sibling to share scary nights with, and my imagination, which serves me well now, was always in over drive back then too. But someone who had a big sister or brother might not have the same experiences.
It’s funny though, most of my dearest friends are afraid of scary movies too. I have to rely on my kids to go with me. Of course, many of those friends are also writers with wild imaginations. 
So how about you? Do you dream? Have you ever had a dream that felt so real you thought you actually lived it? What about de ja vu? Have you ever scared yourself silly? Tell me, I want to know.
