Dreams --> Reality?

[A Mask Among Many]

Okay, this is a little bit wacked out, but please hear me through.

Have you ever had a really cool dream like having an adventure?

Have you ever played it through completely and remembered even the slightest bit of it?

Have you ever come up with a completely new world, possibly with a few holes in it, in your sleep?

I don't know about you guys, but I have actually done all these things multiple times now. The first time was actually with my story about the Sacred Histogram. The second happened just last night, and I have this really crazy new world inside my head now. While being really helpful, I hate it.

Why? Because I have TOO MANY FRICKING IDEAS TO WRITE ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GAH! I owe major time to a novel that I told myself that I'd write a long time ago. I owe time to the Histogram story. I owe time to a couple things that I haven't posted here, as well as a couple of things that I have posted, but need to edit.

WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE SO MANY INTERESTING IDEAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, have any of you guys ever experienced any of this?

If so, Please Advise. PLEASE.

[sapphire]

I dream like that all the time. Had one last night, actually.
Most of the dreams I remember are sci-fi/fantasy adventure stories. I don't think I've ever finished the story, though, which is disappointing.

Write those dreams down! Every detail you can remember, as soon as you wake up (or at least the first moment you have time). Keep a journal - not necessarily a dream journal, just a journal where you can write your dreams and any other ideas down. When you've finished a story that you're working on, you'll have a bunch of ideas just waiting to be written.

[A Mask Among Many]

That's actually what I've started to do. My older sister got some moleskine notebooks for me just out of the blue, so I keep a green one beside my bed, and I wrote down the story from last night. (second one I've written down, first was the Histogram one)

It feels good when I do come up with something that just needs a little bit of fleshing out to become a full-fledged story, but when I first told Raphael about it, he was really annoyed b/c apparently that has never happened to him.

Anyways, I have no idea how to manage this... I feel obligated to so many things...

What do you guys do for this sort of thing? Have you ever experienced too many ideas?

[Zoom]

Oh man, all the time. Full-on plots, characters, stories spanning years, the whole bit. I love it. Some of my best ideas came from these.

And yeah, with the over-ideadness. I don't think there's much you can do besides write everything down, think about it now and then, and work at getting stuff finished.

My problem is once I have a NEW great idea, it's way more interesting to me than any of the other ones. Makes it hard to ever finish anything. Seriously. I'd actually really like to know how many started-but-uncomplete projects I have. I would guess, no exaggeration, at least three hundred. Not all of them are great, of course, but they meant enough to me at the time to bother trying.

I just keep hoping eventually all the main ideas and themes will gel together somehow.

I really like your Histogram idea, by the way. One of those times where stuff just comes together and works. Nice. I wonder if creative types ever induce dreaming to help come up with ideas? I kind of do, I guess.

[sapphire]

Moleskines are the best.

I used to have too many ideas - I seriously came up with a new story at least once a week when I was in high school. Honestly, I just tucked them all away in the back of my mind and wrote whatever I was feeling inspired to write in the meantime. I found it helped a lot to have one or two big projects - novel length - and a short story that I was working on at any given time. I kept three separate notebooks: one for each long work, and one for the short one. I would write whichever I felt like working on and skip around between the three. I was really good at creative multitasking in high school.
When I got to college, I no longer had time for personal writing - too many assignments. So my well of creativity was used up quite effectively by writing lots and lots of shorts (one to two pages, usually).

I have the same issue, though, Zoom - new ideas are always more interesting than ones I've been working on for a while. I compromise, usually: I don't write anything but the bare bones for the new idea, so I don't forget it, but I let myself think about it when I'm not writing; I only really work on the one I've been working on until it's finished.
Eventually, I think it just comes down to discipline. If you really want to finish something, you have to make it happen. For me, that involves writing an outline before I write the story and sticking to my outline. No blaming the fact that I've stopped writing on "I didn't know what to write next" or "I ran out of inspiration" (not that those are invalid excuses - everyone writes differently, this is just what works for me). If I'm going to finish a story, I have to be one hundred percent responsible for getting it done.

[A Mask Among Many]

Okay, that's pretty much exactly what I'm feeling right now. too much stuff, and the new stuff seems better than the old, and I think I'm going to try what you said, Saph.

I'll outline the stuff that I really want to do and push the rest back. I've got some really cool outlines for a map of a few worlds in my head, but I really don't have much beyond that for some.

Anyway, I'll start work on my novel, the histogram thing, and possibly the new idea from the dream I had. Maybe a different thing. Idk.

Thanks guys! You're always a big help!

[sapphire]

Good luck! Hope it works for you.