Stevie Nicks on her creative journey with In Your Dreams

Singer Stevie Nicks walked the red carpet in Toronto on Monday for the Canadian premiere of her new documentary In Your Dreams.

With Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie in the audience in advance of a concert by the band Tuesday, Nicks answered questions about making the documentary.

She produced and co-directed In Your Dreams with Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame), welcoming cameras into her California home for nearly a year while they wrote and recorded the 2011 album of the same name.

She told CBC News having creative control over the documentary allowed her the freedom to relax, despite the constant presence of cameras.

"The camera was this close and you wouldn’t care because it was Dave, because you know he promised you that he would never use anything unless you liked it," she said.

A rock ‘n roll survivor, she describes Fleetwood Mac’s rise to fame and its off-on history since the 1970s. But the bulk of film is devoted to the creative process, as she and Stewart work on new songs and hash out how to shape the sound.

The cameras captured "the writing of seven of the songs. Nobody ever gets that," Nicks said in an interview with CBC’s Zulekha Nathoo.

She toured for two years in support of the solo album, but Nicks said she sold only 300,000 copies, a disappointment after the stardom she enjoyed with Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album Rumours.

" It's awesome if you're an unknown artist and you have a hit single but it's not really that awesome if you're Stevie Nicks," she said.

"It's such a different age now."

Nicks also mentioned an idea Stewart has been trying to get her to embrace – a one-woman stage show along the lines of Barbra Streisand’s My Name is Barbra.

"He wants me to have video screens, like a big room of video screens where it's all my whole life (up there). And I (said): 'Dave, I'm not Barbra Streisand'," Nicks said. "But maybe. Maybe someday."

Fleetwood Mac plays Tuesday at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto as part of a 34-city tour. In Your Dreams screens until April 18 in Toronto.