Subconscious At Work

I am often amazed at how the subconscious mind works. If you have read Freudian Slip, then you can guess that the book's very central idea is how the subconscious works. It started with the very tiny little thought: What if our Freudian Slips were actually our channeling another dimension? And it grew from there.

My dreams are often a small--and frightening glimpse--into my inner mind. Want to know what I dreamt on Saturday? A woman I know from the church I go to, whom I sense REALLY disapproves of me, was mixing up a batch of sea monkeys and dropped some of the powdered brine shrimp on the floor, and I was panicked thinking about all the little Buddhist souls in the sea monkeys blown away before they had a chance to fulfill their sea monkey destinies. See? I TOLD you it was frightening.

But nowhere, for me, is my subconscious more on display than when plotting a novel/writing a novel. If I am "stuck," I release it for a bit. I take a drive, take a shower, take a walk, listen to music, and so far (knock wood), I have always found that eventually, buried in what is ALREADY there, are the solutions. When I plotted the very last scene of Magickeepers II, I gasped. It had come full circle in a way I "thought" I had no idea was there. In a way that is complex and yet so utterly simple. The answer to the entire book was there in the Prologue. And I didn't know it.

Or did I?

How often have you written something only to discover that a single sentence was then the perfect red herring or the perfect foreshadow of what was to come? It has happened to me so often that I can't even quantify it. In Spanish Disco, my very first novel (sold in 2001, published in 2003 . . . wow . . . I've been at this since then . . . which doesn't sound THAT long and yet . . .), the housekeeper makes bonsai arrangements with Kewpie dolls (link for anyone who is too young to remember them) in the scenes. Now, I chose Kewpie dolls, I thought, as an inside joke to any of my cousins who might read it . . . in reference to my grandparents, who HAD a few Kewpie dolls. But when Cassie Hayes discovers a secret about Maria, something having to do with babies . . . the Kewpie dolls suddenly had this meaning far beyond just being quirky. They were a hint already planted there.

So how often do you find YOUR subconscious at work in your writing?

(And P.S. . . . if you want to see how wacky my mind can REALLY get, I believe my very, very short story will be up at Lurker Monkey's blog today. For all you writers . . . if you want to become a Storyteller over there, just join the fun.)