Why daydreaming may help you finish your novel.
I was on a train crossing London this morning, from north-east to south-west, a journey I take frequently. It's where I do most of my reading, sitting in a quiet carriage, dogs at my feet.
But this morning, I'd given up on the book in my bag (I feel no guilt about abandoning any book that doesn't grab me and neither should you), my dogs weren't with me, there was no one else to talk to and my phone was almost dead. Oh, and every stage of my journey was hit by delays and trains suddenly diverting to entirely different destinations to the ones I thought I was heading to.
I wondered if I should use my last five percent of phone battery on a sudoku or make a list and plan my day, and then decided to do neither. Instead, I allowed myself to slowly drift off and daydream and that's what I did for the two and a half hours it took me to get home. Allowing my mind to gently drift here and there, from scene to scene, imagining stories and characters and whole other worlds. And wondering 'what if?'
Daydreaming is a great use of anyone's time, but especially a writer's. I've just read a research paper on how in addition to alleviating stress and anxiety, daydreaming enhances creativity and our ability to solve problems - key for anyone trying to end a novel well, with all the loose ends tidied up and no plot holes remaining.
We should all daydream more. I think this each time I look around me and see everyone mindlessly scrolling on their phones (I'm often guilty of this). I wonder about all the thoughts that aren't thought, the stories that aren't created and the ideas that don't ever get to become anything more substantial because we are so busy doing.
For anyone who hasn't daydreamed in a while, give it a go next time you're on public transport. Ignore your phone, keep your book in your bag and stop making mental lists of everything you need to do this week. Allow yourself to be completely still and open to whatever thoughts arrive. Maybe you're on a beach or climbing a mountain or giving a speech at a book festival. Maybe you're one of your characters and you're seeing what it is to 'be' her and now have a better idea what she would do next. Don't hold on to a thought too tightly. Let each one drift in and drift out of your mind.
Daydreaming like this is how I've come up with almost everything I've ever written. I can't sit down and force a story to reveal itself. Each novel has come from a small idea of someone or somewhere or something that floated into my mind as I sat daydreaming in the car or on a bus. It's also how I've come up with solutions for plots that aren't quite adding up the way I imagined they would and how I've worked out most of my endings.
Daydreaming alone isn't going to write your book for you - that involves months spent alone at your laptop - but it will help you work out what you want to write about and help you reach The End.
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