As I type, the smooth baritone of Mr. Nightmare chimes in the background. He is sharing three truly chilling blizzard horror stories. I have no way of knowing if any of these stories are real, but it does not actually matter. Most of what I write is rooted in reality but flowers with fiction. Mr. Nightmare helps that sometimes, the way Guillermo Del Toro’s creepy office idea inspires the words he composes. It puts me in the mood.
Mood is important. I’ve been re-listening to Peter Clines’ novel Fourteen and he writes of a house where nobody is capable of dreaming. I believe dreams sort me into a mood where I can write, and if I could not dream I’d find myself in a different type of mood in which the words would never arrive.
This, lately, is not far from my present conditions. I have written time and again about the lack of production I am experiencing and the reasons behind that. Once I sit down to compose all of this assorted strangeness into a book on writing and the writing process I’ll make a special section about setting the mood. I believe it may be the most important part of the process next to consistency.