Suggestion: Constructive Day Dreams

Do you have a boring commute to work? Are you unable to read while you exercise? Do you hate singing in the shower? Don’t worry about wasting this time any more – use it for Constructive Day Dreams.

Constructive day dreaming is when you let yourself relax while doing a repetitive chore and think of all the crazy what if’s that could be in your novel.

The key is to pick a topic before you start day dreaming:

• Filling in a character profile (back story, habits, dialogue peculiarities).
• Setting description (every setting needs at least one unique characteristic to set it apart from every other bar, house, castle, forest, field).
• Plot speed (you know from your re-reads the parts you want to skim over – think about why that is and how you might change it).
• Genre expectations (after you’ve plotted the whole novel or done your first draft, look back and ask yourself whether you have too many items expected in your genre [which might start to look cliché] or so little that your genre is undefined [publisher’s want to know what shelf to put you on]).

All of these will need constructive day dreaming time. Do not think of it as being lazy to schedule it into your plans – just make sure that it is a planned topic to think through instead of random stream of consciousness.

This differs from brainstorming in one way: constructive day dreaming is about filling in the blank rooms and undefined details – brainstorming is about figuring out if the choices you’ve made are the right ones.

In short: day dreaming is not being lazy, when you use your time constructively.