Bedtime stories

I meant to do my final post on dark fiction today, but I’ve had even less time than I anticipated this week. I have a slight distraction:

This is my adorable three and a half year old niece who has come to visit me.  She and I (and her mom)have so far been to the zoo, the beach, and an aquarium. Tomorrow we’re going to Disneyland  (she's never been before). 

One night, I ended up on bedtime story detail. We didn't have any picture books, so I ended up making up stories to tell. Not a big deal, really, for someone who does this all the time, right? Except I've become used to plotting and planning and working things out way in advance. When I'm trying to write a coherent story, it's the most efficient way for me to work. But it's also a long way from where I started, and from when I would spontaneously come up with ideas on the fly.

So in telling these stories, which ended up being about a princess and people who didn't like giraffes, or another about a walrus who wanted friends. And even though I love my method for writing stories, it was still kind of nice to remember that I can come up with ideas on the fly, and that I can come up with a cohesive story completely off the top of my head that actually makes sense.

At least from a three year old's perspective. And this time, that was all I needed.