Like many of my ideas, NED came to me in a dream… sort of.
I had an idea for a Udemy program I wanted to create. Its primary goal would be to embolden participants to tap into their personal power, develop more confidence, lose the unnecessary stress and social anxiety, and live more authentically. The course’s secondary purpose is for writers and other creatives to use the activities to unlock ideas for world-building and bringing deeper and richer characters to life.
I fell asleep with ideas bouncing around in my brain. A short time later, while I was still half-asleep, an image of a thin, odd-looking demon with small horns popped into my mind’s eye. In my mind, I asked the demon if he was a “good” or “bad” character, and his answer was, “I’m a necessary evil.” He may be perceived as bad, but in reality, he was the creator of challenges for personal growth.
I quickly outlined a mental list of all the headaches in my life at that moment that were causing me stress, and raised the argument, “What if I don’t want to grow? What if I want things to go back to being as simple as they were before?”
The demon explained I could do that, but then I would miss out on all the potentially great things that would happen if I stuck it out a little longer and took a few more calculated risks.
The next morning, I decided to write a single writing prompt as an experiment to be included in my course. I named him “Ned” as an acronym (a Necessary Evil, Demon). In less than two hours, I was over 3,000 words in with no end in sight. I found a natural conclusion to the first chapter, wrote a prompt around it, and posted it on Medium and Simily. I then recorded an audio version — just for fun.
But in my mind, there was more to the story. So I set out to create what turned out to be a four-part audio/written series with journal prompts for self-reflection. There will be more activities tied to these chapters once the Udemy course is complete.
For now, I encourage you to tune in for A Necessary Evil and see what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM-zqZhDI-Q&t=25s
I’d also love it if you followed me on YouTube.
More details about the program are coming soon.