Don't Knock Daydreaming

Don’t Knock Daydreaming.

When I was in school I’d always get yelled at because I would get caught staring off into space. My report cards would usually come with a side note saying my parents needed to deal with my daydreaming “problem.” That’s how teachers see it – a problem. But it’s not a problem; it’s a sign you’re creative.

I used to sit and think about being a superhero, about saving the world with unique powers and methods, about discovering I’m part of some sort of family lineage that entailed the responsibility of the world, and sometimes I’d just play out the scenario of me asking out the cute girl sitting next to me in class. I think I spent more time in my head than I did in the real world. Some people find that to be unhealthy, but as a writer I find it to be perfectly natural.

I tend to spend my days daydreaming and when people catch me I say, “I’m thinking of story ideas.” Which really is the truth. More often than not my daydreams become actual story plots. More than half of the scenes in Dehumanized started out as nothing more than a disorderly array of images in my head, with fragmented dialogue. When I sit down at the laptop I piece these fragments together into one long stringent, continuous story. Not to mention the slew of short stories I have saved on my computer, ready to be published when the time is right.

Daydreaming basically is brainstorming, but in your free time. The cool thing about being a writer is that you get to let these profound images in your head out into the world, let the words you secretly think be exposed, and put them both together into one big story. Daydreaming is just proof you’re creative, and the more creative you are the better writing you’ll produce. So when a teacher tells you that it’s bad to daydream, don’t listen. It’s healthy! The more you daydream the better stories you can write!

Don’t knock daydreaming. What you’re really doing is exercising your creativity.

Keep it strong!

-Michael Loring.

http://michaelloring.com/