Author Notes- The Imaginary Friend June 26, 2009
Posted by chellieyoung in author notes.Tags: atheneumadventures.com, author notes, chellieyoung.com
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Hi there! If you’re reading this you’re either a) someone helping me get this project off the ground, or b) someone who’s interested enough and cares enough about this project to read something that ISN’T part of the story I’ll be putting here over the course of the next few months/years/however long it takes. Either way, thank you… Thank you SO much!
Here’s a little bit of background, for the curious. In the future, this blog will be reserved exclusively for the rough draft version of The Gilded Shackle novel, but I’m still working out the bugs and getting used to Word Press, so bear with me. I was drug kicking and screaming into the computer age, and I’m breaking new ground here, for me.
A long time ago, when the world was new and I was but a goofy kiddo, a teacher gave me an idea for a writing assignment that would change my life. (BTW, thank you, Mrs. Anfinson!) I was bored and mentioned I liked to write stories but I didn’t know how to start. She randomly tossed out several ideas off the top of her head that were interesting to my fourth-grade mind, but one of them really caught my interest.
“What if your imaginary friend was real?” she asked.
This one stuck with me because, like many kids with an overactive imagination I did have an imaginary friend. Not one I had tea parties with, took pretend magic carpet rides on the dining room rug, blamed my real-life misadventures on, or anything like that- but I did have a recurring character that appeared in my dreams on a fairly regular basis. These dreams in which my “imaginary friend” appeared took on a story-like and episodic consistency that made them unusual. They provoked either enthusiasm or dread depending on the subject matter or what was going on in my “waking life” at the time, but the important thing was the constant in them… a plucky little elf-like kid named Marne.
So, while these tales aren’t a catalog of my own experiences by any means, my own experiences were the inspiration and imagination took over from there… and boy, did it ever!
In my dreams, we were pals. He was the kind of best friend that you could tell anything to, and would hold your hand if you were scared and then later tell everyone that you both were heroically brave.
The teacher’s question fell like seeds on the fertile soil of my fourth grade imagination. I took it, and ran.
Since I only saw my imaginary friend when I was asleep, what if he he had a life too, and only got to see me when he was asleep? It was a fascinating idea, really. What kind of a person would my imaginary friend be, if he had a real life?
In my dreams, Marne wasn’t really from anywhere, but if I was going to write about him he had to be from somewhere. Everyone’s from somewhere. I’m from Iowa. He needed to be from somewhere much more exotic. My fourth-grade mind imagined him up a world filled with beautiful and exotic scenery, dangerous creatures, and epic adventure when I was wide awake and bored.
I wrote things, drew drawings, and kept myself busy.
In my dreams, Marne didn’t have a family or a history, but if I was going to write about him he had to have had a past and people he shared it with. Everyone has people in their lives, family, friends, even enemies who shape them. Who could he be, when he was awake and not hanging out with me in the dreamscape I came to call “ShadowTown?” Surely he had to have parents, friends, relatives, and all those people that make up the cast in someone’s life. I set out to imagine some of them, too.
It was a fun project, and as it was for fun and not an assignment, it never got turned in.
Eventually, real-life concerns took over for a while and this naturally ended up on the back burner for many years, even though I still dreamed these fantastic, complex, plot-heavy dreams with my friend Marne still playing a central character. For fun I did a little research on dreams, psychology, etc, and played around with a theories (Carl Jung, anima/animus) but for the most point, all through my childhood and even through Junior High and up into my freshman year, I simply enjoyed my unusual dreams, took advantage of the insights I got from them, and kind of kept it all quiet because by then I was pretty sure I was some kind of wierdo. I was okay with being a wierdo, as long as it wasn’t too public!
Check out my other blog at www.atheneumadventures.com tomorrow for the continuing story and find out how Dungeons and Dragons helped me learn to develop characters, what book series changed my life and made me want to become a writer and what terrible fate awaits smart-alec girls who openly mock their Dungeon Master!
Feel free to leave a comment, book mark this site, tell everyone about it, and check back later for more installments. I hope to actually start the story itself pretty soon! -Chel
All Materials (c) Chellie Young, 2009. All Rights Reserved.
