Confession time...this is so not the post I'd intended to write, but something happened yesterday.
Yesterday I had a terrible, awful, no good, very bad day. And like the lovely Raewen Hewitt, I was inspired by a less than fun experience.
You see, I had to go to the dentist. While my dentist and her hygienists are wonderful women, I have a deep and abiding fear of them - well, of any dentist, really. Earlier in the day, I told a friend that the only way going to the dentist could be worse was if the doctor had dressed up in a clown costume made of spiders. (Disclaimer: I don't actually know what that would look like, but it seems pretty horrific when I think about it.)
Spoiler alert: I was wrong. I was so terribly, terribly wrong.
I had to get an old filling replaced because I guess that's a thing. So I put in my headphones, cued up a mix I call, "Got Prozac?" (think Counting Crows, Damien Rice, Howie Day, etc.) and tried my best to check out.
I got the first shot of novacaine. The doctor waited the appropriate amount of time then started drilling. It didn't exactly work. So I got another dose. This one worked, but it also made my heart race and my body shake uncontrollably. I don't think I've ever shook that hard in my life. Nor have I ever felt that out of control. I was understandably freaked out. Nay...I was freaked the hell out. It was decided that I should probably have some nitrous to calm down so they could finish the work.
Guess who had a negative reaction to that? Yep. Complete with hallucinations. There was part of my brain that would tentatively raise it's hand and say, "Dude, it's cool. You're just hallucinating." The rest of my brain was stuck watching the terrifying images that would waver in and out of focus while I tried not to hyperventilate.
If you've stayed with me this far, you're probably wondering what any of this freakshow has to do with inspiration. Well, when I went to bed last night, I had nightmares. Basically an endless loop replay of my visit to the dentist. I did one of those things where I sat up straight in bed gasping for air. I'm not even convinced that I was fully awake when the dream started to fade and morph into something else.
It turned into a full blown scene from my WIP involving some super unfortunate faery magic. So I grabbed the notebook I keep by the side of the bed and started scrawling it down. At some point, my husband groaned and said, "I hear some writers write during the day." To which I responded, "None of the ones I know," and kept writing.
Now, I'm not saying that I'm glad this happened. Not even close. But because of it, I feel like now I have a good chance of accurately conveying the disorientation and terror involved with that sort of loss of control. Soooo...silver lining? Yeah, I'm going with that. And next time, they can just knock me right out. I'm not sure I need more inspiration like that.
Please check out the other Thursday's Children authors and their inspiration for the week! And feel free to join in - it's a fantastic blog hop! Here's the code:
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Unfortunately, not all of the linky links are showing up and I'm not sure why. :(
