A few minutes ago I had this strange vision of myself walking around outside dropping keys everywhere.  I don’t know where it came from; it was just one of the random thoughts I have.  These keys were not the boring kind like the ones that open our houses or car doors.  They were lovely, silver and gold skeleton keys.  They were characters really, and there was a certain fanciful quality about them.

I usually don’t have ideas, especially writing ideas, of a supernatural or artistic nature.  I like people, and character-driven studies.  I like to explore people’s tendencies, processes, and natures by manifesting different archetypes through the voices of strong fictitious personalities.  I like writing reality in imagined worlds.  Needless to say, this whimsical key-dropping scenario got some untapped creative juices flowing.  Some corner of my mind I usually don’t hear from started jumping up and down.  Some dormant neurons obviously got bored today.

I decided to follow this process into a forest reminiscent of the forest in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream.  After I dropped the antiquated keys I noticed people started to pick them up.  I climbed a tree and watched them.  They all suddenly developed dialogue bubbles over their heads like ones we would see in a comic strip .  I could see all of their imaginations take control of their minds.  They wanted the keys.  The possibilities of what they could open were delicious.  Ultimately, I knew the keys led nowhere, but that joy they rendered to these wanderers was everywhere.  They were keys that meant possibility, hope, wonder, and creativity.  How I would love to be able to gift that as a writer.

I suddenly picked up a key myself, and unlocked a regal door.  It was like something I had seen at The Biltmore Estate.  I was in a writing room, something I’ve always wanted in my home.  A long time ago I told my husband I wanted one in my dream house.  It would be a quirky room, like if the Elizabethan era butted heads with modern southern-chic decorum.  It would have a high ceiling and loft inside, accessible by a spiral stair case.  It will be the ideal locale for me to get comfy and give my word processing software a workout..oh…and with whimsical curtains, the style of the key…those are a requirement, perhaps with a breeze blowing through.  Delicious.

My key opens my happy, free place, which is the writing realm.  I realized I delight in the idea that others have this place. Perhaps my novel will be a place like this for someone one day.  Regardless of what it is though, I want people to have that fantasy place.  I dreamt it while wide awake today.  Lucid dreams are awesome…so much to do with them because they are clear.

The point of all this is two things…I learned a little about my creative boundaries, which are more vast than I thought they were; and I learned everyone deserves a place to be free.  Everyone needs their own brand of a “writing realm.”  That is what my coherent slumber told me today…I think I loved this brief journey my mind allowed today…my advice to others is to have your own.  Close your eyes, pick up that key and go somewhere.  Go to the realm the key opens in the mind. Imagine and create.