I daydream. Well, when I’m not bugged by people requiring my full attention on something as mundane as a monthly closing or an unapproved invoice. Some people daydream about winning loads of money on the lottery. So do I occasionally, which is a very stupid daydream seeing as I don’t buy lottery tickets (What do I expect? To win without playing? COME ON!)
Mostly I daydream about being somewhere else in a very far away time. Recently, thanks to a book called The Scarlet Kimono, I’m spending a lot of time in historic Japan. Drawbacks are that I don’t know any Japanese or all that much about Japan, so these daydreams don’t become vivid enough (I don’t think seventeenth century Japanese people would converse in English, do you?) No, it’s better to pretend I’m in thirteenth century England and conveniently ignore the fact that I would probably not understand all that much there either.
Common factor in all these daydreams is HE. Enigmatic, taciturn, exuding an appetizing mixture of recklessness and hardheaded ambition … Being a modern woman (even when fantasising about medieval England) I have a problem with being the Damsel in distress. Also, my age probably disqualifies me anyway, and who’s ever heard of a Matron in distress? This tends to end up in a bit of an irritated squabble between my daydream hero who clearly resents not being allowed monopoly on the hero role, and my time travelling dreaming self, who will glare at this jerk of a man with my hands planted on my hips and tell him that I am fully capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much. Discord threatens to end this daydream before it has even properly begun, but luckily I can throw in a spicy ingredient along the lines of an ambush, an irate king or why not a deranged, murderous priest that unites us into a “Two for all, all for two” attitude.
“Have you had time to look at the file I sent you?”
“Eeh?” I jerk and swivel on my chair to frown at this most unwelcome intruder. And just when we were getting down to the nitty gritty, my daydream hero and I…
“The file – you know, the excel calculation you wanted me to do.”
“Ah.” Medieval England fades away, the dark green gown I was wearing is replaced by adequate office wear, and the man before me has no soft tunic in tawny yellow, no sword hanging at his side.
Much later I sink down before my computer and let my mind drift away to my daydream lands. I write. And write. My hero acquires name and eye colour, the vague story develops into a plot line, the thirteenth century is replaced by the sixteenth and I’m no longer in England, nor am I wearing dark green. One stolen moment just after lunch at work develops into a series of such moments. Such is the joy of writing.
I guess my major problem is that I have so MANY daydreams, so many half shaped stories in my head. Well, at least I won’t get bored, no matter how many excel sheets come my way!
P.S. The Scarlet Kimono by Christina Courtenay is available on Amazon.