TanyaschI have come to the conclusion that Ideas Are Alive.  I will explain with an anecdote.

Last night, I worked on a practice piece (from the prompt for the 25th.) I had shortened my brainstorm and actual writing time significantly, since I did want to get to bed sometime before I had to be awake. The stuff I came up with was, in a word, garbage. Regurgitated garbage, in truth, so I felt no guilt in closing the laptop when the timer went off and simply going to bed without giving the piece a second thought.

But then, something happened when the lights went out. My terrible idea began to bubble in the back of my mind, something I was only dimly aware of as I settled down. It percolated into something better as I sank into sleep, and I remember hoping that I would be able to recall the new slant for the idea when I awoke.

While I slept, the idea kept working – like yeast-leavened bread, it expanded and became something not so sticky and hard to work with, but the foundation for something delicious. I woke this morning with the story fully formed in my head, and wrote it down in an hour and a half. None of the prompt words made an appearance, but they didn’t need to. The idea did all the work. It needs tidying, of course, and several edits with breaks between before I send it out into the world. But it is there.

And all I did was sleep on it.

(reprinted from original at Blogging in the Dark)

TL.Schofield is the sum of an equation factoring in her upbringing, her love, her passions, her children, her pets, and her insatiable need to create something out of nothing. The results of this equation are often inconsistent, depending on the chameleon color of her hair, her proximity to the ocean, and her consumption of coffee and / or cheese. She is often lost in thought.