Inspiration

-The budding seed of this story came from the opening of the anime "Erased." I've put the video above. Watch the visuals and you'll see what I mean. The movie/memories connection also reminded me of a conversation I had a friend about dreams. I said dreams were like walking into a movie theatre for free; you didn't know if it was going to be a good or bad movie.

-Langston Hughes' poem, Montage of a Dream Deferred, was another huge inspiration. Mostly for the title actually. But also the jazz vibe, and the lyrics. I was extremely close to naming the main character "Hughes" because I couldn't stop picturing Quinton as Hughes. (Hughes is a great poet. Check him out.)

-Another of Hughes' poems, The Weary Blues. I based my piano scene around this poem, which to me talks about loneliness as the man played on the piano. My favourite poem of his. Sooo good.

-The Pixar movie Inside Out, because of course it was. But instead of personified emotions, I wanted to play around with separating aspects of Quinton's life into their own characters. Make of that what you will.

Writing

-Coming up with the idea was easy. Coming up with a plot that had an actual direction -- per usual, that was the hard part. The jot notes sat in my Google Drive for almost a month until I figured how to make the story feel dynamic and less introspective. What better way than introducing some characters?

-I did not plan on writing original lyrics. I found that Jimmy Yancey's "Crying in My Sleep" fit the mood, but I couldn't find the written lyrics. I didn't want to try to type out the lyrics in case I got them wrong. Surprisingly in half an hour I had my lyrics.

-Why was Hands invisible? Not sure. It's easier for me to imagine him as gloves in my mind but I liked the idea.

-There's only so much I can say about the actual writing process before it gets boring, so I think I'll stop here. Feel free to drop any questions.

Miscellaneous

-I chose this story to be the namesake of the collection is not only because it's a fitting title for a collection (hence the word 'montage'), but I have a weird obsession with dreams. It fascinates me to no end. So I think it'll age well and encompass half of the collection.

I'll be a little surprised if more than a couple of people read this. Do you find author's notes interesting or would you rather be left with your own thoughts about a story?