I climbed into bed last night without the slightest clue what this year’s Nano would be about. But thanks to some sleeping tablets that has all changed.
Previous years inspiration has come from a combination of a germ of an idea with a little chemical assistance. In 2004 the psycho-active ingredient was psilocybin. In 2005 it was mainly caffeine and bioflavinoids. This year i tried a mixture of 10mg Codeine Hydrochloride and 500mg Parcetemol. It may have done the trick.
One idea I had to make up for my lack of ideas was to try and include in each days writing the content of the previous night’s dreams. As the owner of plenty of very vivid dreams this seemed both a good source of inspiration and a challenge to mix them all together into a single (mostly) coherent story.
Since i start writing at midnight tonight I needed to start my dreaming one day early and to give myself a flying start I applied some codeine to the case because in my experience it makes dreams even more intensely absurd. So i took a left over painkiller I had been saving for just such an occasion and off I went.
It wasn’t long before i woke from something like delerium, partially induced by this paper i had been reading earlier than evening
Anderson , J.R. & Lebiere (2003) The Newell Test for a theory of cognition Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (5) 587-601
And with an interesting and challenging theme for my whole book there in my head. Chances are I won’t now need to use my other dreams, I might not even be able to but it does mean that this years nano is already moving into the exciting world of the previously unknown and undiscovered that had made the previous years so rewarding. Won’t tell you much about the idea as yet, but i can tell you the title:
Awake! – A novel about self-awareness
