The Dreams that Move Me

I went up the stairs toward the second story apartment. It was just like I remembered that day when I came here with my girlfriend, deep dark wooden banisters and carpet runners designed to fit each step, not the full sized carpet cut to run down the steps nailed into the contours. The wood was still published to a high shine.

I was just in time to meet a woman as she burst from the door above and ran down the stairs past me pulling a sweater on. Her path past me told the man that another person stood here. He hadn’t noticed that detail last time.

He looked over the rail. I backed up but I knew he could still see my feet. “Who are you?” he asked. The smell of alcohol was so strong, I could smell it from where I stood.

I went on up the stairs; this was why I was here.

As soon as I entered the apartment, he was pulling another glass from the cupboard. He handed it to me and turned for the fridge.

I turned to set the wine glass on the counter and saw two others sitting there already full. “You already have some here. Have you lost count? We can’t have that. We’ll start over.” I poured those two drinks down the drain.

He turned back from rummaging in the fridge and reached past me to fill my glass. This was his first time actually facing me. He looked at me with his bloodshot eyes. His hair was disheveled to say the least, and he probably hadn’t shaved in a couple days. His striped pajama shirt was buttoned with only two of its buttons and they weren’t lined up, and his bottoms might very well be on backwards. I found it odd, despite how obviously drunk he was, that he only had one black sock on.

Puzzled, he studied my face. “Do I know you?” He set the wine bottle down on the counter behind me.

Now I know I am no up town looker like the girl who had just left, not even like my girlfriend. I wasn’t his style at all. “We’ve met,” I said. “I heard you were drinking. In fact I heard several different accountings of your inebriation. Once upon a time you meant something to my girlfriend. Sandy. You do remember Sandy, don’t you? Since you meant something to her, I thought I’d come see for myself. You know, she still talks about you. I think if she were standing here instead of me, she’d be crying. I’d hate to see Sandy cry.”

I turned around to retrieve my drink. “I don’t much care for wine.” I poured it down the drain.

“Ah, well, um, that wine really needs to go back in the fridge.” He reached for the bottle.

“Well then, we can’t let it get cold.” I scooped the bottle out of his reach and poured it down the drain too. “Pretty bottle. I might have to keep that.” It was too. The cut glass would make a beautiful vase. I set it on the counter.

He turned back to the fridge. “Well then, can I interest you in some beer?” Drunk as he obviously was, he was quick with the bottle opener and had them flipped open and steaming cold in front of me, already one on the way to his lips. I snatched it from him and washed the wine down the drain with them.

“You’ve changed. Or have you? Maybe this is the you Sandy left. I admired you though.”

He headed for the bedroom. There were likely other drinks in there since the contents of his fridge were going down the drain so fast.

“You want to know what I admired about you? I thought you were almost perfect. You reminded me of what’s-his-name in that movie. Pretty Woman. You look a lot like him, you know. Heck, you almost have the same name. Dick Gear. You are the reason I even half remember his name. What is his first name anyway? I’ll have to look it up again one of these days.”

Dick headed directly for the bedside table and the half full bottle waiting there. In the dim light of the room, it looked like a bomb had gone off – a clothes bomb anyway. All the way around the large center of attraction, the rumpled bed that looked like it hadn’t been made in a month or more, were piles and drifts of clothes that looked like they’d been kicked there.

Even though the curtains were closed, blocking out the morning light, I could spot at least three empty bottles and more wine glassed among the clothes, and at least one more empty bottle under the bed – and yes, there was another glass down there too. What did he do when he ran out of glasses in the cupboard, order some more online? If he was this drunk, he wasn’t going to any store.

He turned around with his find and I was there to relieve him of it. “I remember that first day I saw you. You were so slick. I don’t think Sandy ever saw the girl you slipped past her. ‘Course you didn’t know I was down there on the stairs so I saw her. Sandy was so happy to be home; I couldn’t spoil it for her.”

He made a grab for the bottle, but I went back to the kitchen and upended it in the sink, leaving it to empty itself down the drain.

“You were the handsomest man, even with gray hair, I’d ever seen, I think. Your hair was immaculate. You were perfectly dressed, even your tie was centered – perfect. Sandy didn’t suspect a thing. How could she? That girl could have been a magazine salesgirl. But I saw. I saw how you snuck her out. I saw the utterly guilty look on her face when she saw me. But let’s get back to you. You had a beautiful smile. You want to know what was wrong with that smile though? That beautiful, charming smile, showing those perfect white teeth, never made it to your eyes, not even when you looked as Sandy. I knew, that first day, that Sandy was just another of your girls. The fact that she lived with you didn’t make any difference.”

I opened the refrigerator and started dumping the liquid contents down the drain as quickly as I could open the bottles.

“When was the last time you actually ate any real food?” I started in on the beer bottles. He had something for every possible occasion, and I knew there had to be more bottles in the cupboards, or somewhere.

He just stood there watching me.

“You mean something to her, therefore you mean something to me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So yeah, my dreams take an odd turn sometimes. Where this one came from, I have no idea. I've been watching the Burn Notice series recently, and I haven't watched Pretty Woman in maybe a couple years now. The guy, Dick, really did remind me of Richard Gere in that movie; he could have been his twin or a stunt double, but the name was also given to me in the dream so the two were definitely not the same at all. My girlfriend's name was too, and I do have a girlfriend by that name, my longest standing girlfriend, and the only one of her kind. The picture in my head for this girlfriend, however, was the perfect model image of her - something neither of us were anywhere close to in all of our lives. She also never had any such an affair, and I never had the chance to meet any of her chosen mates. Her life has always been on the other end of the country from mine. We were fast friends in Junior High and stayed connected through collage. We lost contact after that as I went east and she went north. Then I went way north and she went south. We reconnected through my mom and would exchange whole books for letters. Now we stay in touch through Facebook. Her life and interests now are very different from mine, but I still love her. I can see myself doing something like this for her, even though she would never know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Making of a Mage-King

Have you ever had a series of dreams that simply dominated your life? This is the way Making of a Mage-King came about. As I wrote, my nights were rife with dreams of future scenes or events, and sometimes, though I knew they related, I had no idea how. You know how dreams can be? Twisted and nonsensical. Some say it's my muse. I've even heard it described as channeling, and it certainly felt that way from time to time.

I've posted about dreams before and how they fueled my writing most of the time. This story was by far the most loaded up with such dreams - actual dreams - with very little altering to fit the moment.

So here's the evil fun part: Though such dreams increase in book 2, White Star, and even more so in book 3, Mage-King, they are in all three books. I challenge you to find them. I'm not sure what I can offer you for doing so. I'd gladly sign your book but you'd have to send it to me. Course, I'd gladly do that anyway. I'm going to have to figure out how to sign eBooks too. Hmmm maybe I might be able to send you a copy of the next book if you find the dreams in the first book. I'd have to think on that. What do you think? Do you think you could find the dreams that fueled this story? Have fun looking.

Starting with an Idea

This is how many of my books start, though sometimes these things end up as just a scene within a different story. Last night I had a dream. In this dream, magic was commonplace and we were moving a castle. You might think this entailed a good deal of work but it seems, either it didn't, or someone else was doing all the heavy lifting. Anyway, as is common with many of these dreams of mine, this one had a history, and I remembered that I'd had a previous dream on the same subject. In that one the final location was picked out for where we were going to move this castle.

During the course of last night's dream, the passage of time was marked by the seasonal transformation of a hanging plant I was tending. There were other details about the move too. At one point we were crossing or going down a large river (it had to be very large) and there was debris floating along with us, but it was passing us by. 

As the season progressed, the plant lost it's leaves, and then the moss growing on the outside of the pot fell away revealing a round black pot like you get a plant from the store. This pot was different from the 'other' such plants I had, so I transplanted it. Why I wasn't worried about these plants surviving the winter hanging in their pots, I don't know, but winter was setting in and it was time to find a place to stop for the winter.

The lord of the castle came up to me as soon as things were settled and we were discussing the inefficiency of the move. We should have been moving at least as fast as everything else floating on the river, if not faster.  I apparently was the person responsible for seeing that this didn't happen again.

Hmmm - I wonder what the next dream installment will bring.

Inspiration, Dreams or Haunting

Where does your inspiration come from? Much of mine come from dreams. Yeah, I know, if you could read any of my stories, you'd know how odd my dreams are. I won't give away which parts were fueled by my dreams, or maybe I already have somewhere here, you'll have to look and see. haha

My strongest dreams usually involve some location, usually a building but not always. These dreams are also usually recurring after a fashion. The first of this kind involved a hotel and there were three in this series. The first was me (a me that was not me in any way) at about four or five years old. 'I' was skipping up and down the hall way of a hotel. In some dim way I knew where I was but not exactly what floor, just not to bottom floor - some mid to upper range floor, though not a top floor either. I was dressed in little girl patten leather shoes and white socks. I had a fancy little dress on with a wide gathered skirt held full by a many-ruffled slip. 'My' hair was brown, shoulder-length and very curly - something like Shirley Temple only longer. These are all details I distinctly remember about the dream, just as I distinctly know the 'me' in this dream bares no resemblance to the actual me at any point in my life.

During my skipping, I discover a small square door in the wall. Being curious, I go in and find a narrow hallway of regular height. It goes in a little ways, a few yards, and then there is a set of four or five stairs. At the top of those stairs, to each side is a regular door. I have a choice. Which door do I choose to explore first? I choose the left-hand door, and behind door number one is a child's bestest play room anyone could imagine. There was a wall of shelves stuffed with all manner of toys and the floor was crowded with the bigger kind including a carved wooden rocking horse, among other things. I think I was so surprised it woke me up. That was the end of that dream.

The second installment of this series was 'me' back at this hotel some years later. The timeline in my dream bares no resemblance to the timeline out in the real world. I remember that door and decide to go in search of it, after all, there is another door to explore, and the amazing room behind the first door needs a little verification. I don't find that little square door.

The third installment was even shorter. This time 'I'm' an adult, maybe in my twenties and I'm looking up at this tall, dark, square building. No lights in the windows anymore, though this is the first time the outside of this building was in my view. I approached the building from the sidewalk but couldn't get in. End of dream sequence but still very vivid in my memory.


Another series of dreams, equally as vivid and equally as chronological, was also wrapped around a building. In the first installment I entered the front door. To the left is the living room. This room bares a very strong resemblance to my real aunt's living room, to include a small solarium behind the living room couch, and I'm certain the rest of the house in that direction does too, but it's just an assumption, I don't go that way.

To the right, any resemblance to my real aunt's house is totally gone. There is a wide double door in the wall there leading to what I expect to be a formal living room only instead of fine furniture, several twin beds are crowded in here. They are all empty and white, looking very hospital but without any hospital feeling. This is a place that rents beds.

The outside wall directly on the other side of this room from the double doors is all glass, or at least mostly glass, and outside is a wide flowerbed in full bloom. Standing in this double doorway I look to the left and see a door. On the other side of this door, among other things, I know there is a doorway to upstairs, but this door is locked. I'm not sure why I woke up, but that is the end of this dream.

The next part, I figured out how to get beyond that locked door. Somehow I got past that glass wall, but I don't remember there being glass doors, so there's a possibility I simply walked around the outside. At any rate, the next room did have glass doors so I gained entrance to the room from there. To the left, hard on that outside wall, was the door to the upper floors. At the top of a long set of stairs was two doors, one on each side and a blank wall straight ahead. I looked into each room and they were empty bedrooms with empty closets.

The next part, I'm in the right-hand room upstairs, and for the first time there is another person in the dream. A little girl is sitting in the middle of the floor playing with something quietly. I cross the room and look out the window, which is heavily frosted - it's winter outside now. For some reason I look in the closet before leaving the room again - the doors are close together - I find a hand-made rag doll, all brown and seeming old. I never speak to the girl sitting in the middle of the floor.


I heard it said in another forum that such dreams are something akin to paranormal channeling or some sort of out-of-body other-where/other-when experience, and to a certain degree that may be true. If these places, and others that visit my dreams, exist, I have never seen them. Other buildings have been in recognizable neighborhoods but no such building was ever in that neighborhood.

What do I do with these buildings? Nothing so far. They don't have a history. It's like now that they have been dumped into my memory, they are satisfied. I haven't visited them since.

Other dreams I have are very different. Though no more than a scene or two, these dreams have a history - a story - a life. Now, most of these have been poured out onto my computer's paper. The end result isn't quite like the dream, but the dream seems to be satisfied with the story I've woven.

Do any of your stories come from your dreams? Do they haunt you until they are told? or at least until they are viewed?

Writer's Block - What are Your Solutions?

I never really understood writer's block. There are so many different definitions. For me, it sounds like the writer ran up against a big blank wall and they simply can't write their way around it. I've never had much of a problem with the issue. The closest thing that qualifies are the minor stumbling blocks of how do I get my character from point A to point B. But, where a straight path won't do, a crooked path will, and sometimes my character has to go way around the issue to get to point B and beyond.

Where do you come up with the ideas for your next book? When you finish with the manuscript that has consumed all your free time for months if not years, what do you do next? This too is no problem for me. I give myself a rest for a day or two, or as long as I can stand it, and then I go to my 'Ideas' folder and pick one to work on. Where do these ideas come from? You may laugh, but I have really quite vivid dreams and many of my current manuscripts were generated from them in one way or another. Ever since I have started to jot those dreams down, I have accumulated over 25 assorted scenes and ideas. Some of them have seen some development, but most of them are merely the dream as I've been able to paint it on the paper.

Images, information and knowledge can sometimes be difficult to convey into words but I do my best. Last night was one of those nights. I was woken at around 4:30 rather abruptly after feeling a knife rammed into my back. There was no going back to sleep after that, so I got up and wrote down the dream. For your enjoyment, here it is. It needs a little fleshing and maybe some names, but then it's only an idea at this point. I look forward to your comments.

~~~~

Pixies

As man expanded into space they left their fantasies and fairytales behind, or at least they thought they did until they ran across a race that called themselves Pixies. That wasn’t exactly the right word, but it was as close as the human tongue could get to pronouncing it.

Pixies were the embodiment of playful trouble, and like their ancient namesake, they could accomplish thievery and pranks of all sorts with a sprinkling of pixie dust and a mischievous giggle. It was because of pixies that humans developed jetpacks that guided with a mere thought and eye lenses that saw into the infrared as well as sound waves.

Pixies, however, were a small agile people, and even with such advancements, catching them was nearly impossible. Pixies were like small children that had been stretched. They were fine boned to the point of looking fragile, and yet lithe and tough like a cat. Their pointed ears and slanted purple eyes completed the picture, making anyone who saw them wonder about the truth of fairytales.


Three men chased three pixies across a planetary landscape, the pixies always just within sight, their giggles leading the men on. These pixies had raided the same outpost many times. Their pranks were never life threatening, and what had been stolen had always been recovered eventually, usually undamaged, but such impunity had to be stopped, and so the chase covered miles each time.

The chase came to a river, as each man burst from the underbrush, a pixie giggled, sprinkled a pinch of sparkling pixie dust, and created a tiny speeder and leapt off into the sky, the human in hot pursuit. The third pixie waited for a second longer, watching, smiling, as her pursuer came close. Then she turned to dive into the water, feigning a near stumble. This time she’d let him catch her; she had long hungered to feel his strong arms around her. She was the reason the raids had gone on for so long. He was the reason she kept coming back.

She got her wish. His jets on full thrust, he caught her in midair. Spinning, he kept her from escaping into the water. She wrapped her arms around him and her legs too. She buried her face in his neck feeling the course stubble of his unshaven chin and the hot pulse in his neck. She pulled herself as close as she could, a hand feeling up the back of his neck, her fingers finding their way into his sweaty hair.

She made a grave mistake though. She didn’t understand human anger. Furious beyond reason, the man ended the chase by plunging a knife into her back. Only then did the man realize all the things that had gone before. She tipped her head back and looked up at him, her mouth open in surprise, now rimmed with blood, her purple eyes gone dark with confusion.

“Why did you let me catch you?”

She gasped a wet breath. “Because I love you.” And then she went limp.

He pulled the knife out and threw it away, then he hastily brought them back to the sandy riverbank, giving no thought to a safe landing, they tumbled and rolled, her limp body clutched in his arms, tears causing the sand to stick to his face.

They had only just come to rest when he heard a wailing cry from above. He spotted one of the other pixies streaking in to land with a sparkle of pixie dust as his speeder vanished, leaving him running across the sand toward them without so much as a bump.

He knelt down beside them as the man attempted to disentangle himself from the fragile creature he had just killed. The pixie touched the blood on her back and looked up at the man. “What have you done?”

The man could only shake his head. One by one, the others landed and gathered around as the pixie produce a small pouch in a shower of pixie dust, and from it sprinkled red pixie dust onto the wound. “If she will live for another minute, she may still survive,” he said as he carefully straightened her limbs and lovingly fingered her hair into order.


She opened her eyes to the glow of a campfire. A soft blanket was tucked up under her chin and around under her head and she felt hot. Sitting across the fire from each other was the slight pixie and the man.

For the first time in her life, she felt a profound sorrow. The pixie loved her with all of his heart. She knew this to the depths of her soul. But she had flirted with a human - a match that could never be.

She rolled over and sat up, pushing the blanket away and breathing in the cool night air. Off to the side she spotted the pile of plunder they had taken this time. The game was done; it wasn’t fun any more. At her movement both men looked at her; the others had already left. She went to the pile and with a wave of her hand and a scattering of sparkling pixie dust that lit the pile for a moment, she added her plunder to it.

The men’s eyes never left her, she had to choose and there really was only one choice. She went and stood beside her childhood friend, resting a hand on his shoulder. She gazed across the flames at the human she’d been able to touch just once. “We won’t bother you again.”

The human stood, as did the pixie; their standoff would not easily pass. “I’m sorry.”

The pixie turned to lead her away but she hesitated. With a parting sigh she said, “Blood is a time for sadness.” Then she followed her companion into the darkness.

The man watched them go, the thin moonlight making them possible to follow only because of their motion, then there was a brief burst of pixie dust sparkles, and they were gone.

My Passion and My Obsession

To many people, I have mentioned the many different books I've written. I sometimes wonder if they believe me. Mostly because all the people I talk to, at most, have two or three. Even if those with more published books than I have, don't seem to have as many finished manuscripts. Am I bragging? I'm not trying to. I'm just trying to understand. What is it that I did different than these other writers? I know one big thing, I'm certain they all spent more time socializing - 'developing their platform', as I've been told needs to be done years in advance of publishing their work.

In contrast, all I did was write. I had stories to tell - tales to spin, and when I wasn't spinning a tale, I was reading through it, just to make sure it said what I wanted it to say. It was very important to me that actions and scenes were as clear as I could make them. As I've covered in an earlier post, I made many mistakes in the mechanics of writing, mistakes I'm now trying to iron out. I don't know that I'll ever iron all the kinks out - I'm thinking part of it is simply my way of telling my story - my voice, if you will.

Anyway, for those of you who might be curious, I thought I'd tell you a little about the books I've written. Many years ago, long before I even thought I'd be a writer, I decided to write a story in an open notebook. The job I had at the time required a fifteen minute break in the morning and afternoon and a half hour break for lunch. Not one to twiddle my thumbs during these breaks, I wrote in my notebook. During the course of various moves out here, that notebook got lost, but I tried to recreate it from memory, with slightly less magic. I'm not all that happy with the result, but TO RECLAIM THE THRONE is 212 pages long as of today (that's 58,728 words).

Many of my stories started with one of my rather vivid dreams. One such dream was a young man gazing across a wide valley. In the center of that valley was a dome, and littered all across the horizon was hundreds if not thousands of Star Wars-type ships of all sizes - he was taking pictures of it all - he was so happy - he wanted a beer, and then suddenly it all exploded into action and the young man that was me had to run for his own ship - a ship he spoke to as if it was another person, like you see in the movies sometimes. That was the dream - for the book, I had to come up with names and reasons for what he was seeing and why he was so happy. Then I had to figure out what might happen next. It was really an interesting journey, both for my character and for me. THE SPEED OF DREAMS ended up being 254 pages long (67,699 words).

THE MYSTERY OF PLANET WER also started with a dream, but this dream was an ending. The scene was a loving couple hugging each other tenderly while standing in front of a house-less fireplace and chimney. That was the picture, but along with it came some information. He was a werwolf and she was blind. She was also the only person on the planet who could end the quarantine. Now, I must confess, another influence for this book was a cartoon I used to enjoy. One of the crewmen was also a werwolf. As long as he was off planet he couldn't be anything but a werwolf, but as soon as he was home, he could be human and change at will. This werwolf, and mine, wasn't the monster from the movies, though that didn't mean that he couldn't be very dangerous in his wolf form. Well, now I had a main character. All I had to do was introduce him to the love of his life and figure out what the quarantine was and how to end it. I had so much fun with the wer-people as they worked their way through the mystery of their roots, which of course tied them to the native creatures of the planet. As you might guess, this story did not take place on Earth. It is 254 pages long (69,324 words)

WHAT FUTURE, SLAVE did not start with a dream. Instead I wanted to experiment with the concept of slavery as it should have been handled, not the way it was handled in our history. No, in my book slaves were every bit as important as livestock and treated much the same. As we all know, not all animals are treated well, and the same is true with slaves in my book, but that's not what the story is about. The story is about a girl, a slave, who's father was a free man, and though he acknowledged her as his daughter, he refused to free her. The story is wrapped around the reason for that action. Why couldn't her father free her? Why could none of the women in her bloodline be freed? Why did all the women in her bloodline die the moment they gave birth to a girl-child? All questions that get answered in the book, but I warn you, though it has a good ending, it doesn't have a happy ending. This book is 268 pages long (75,531 words)

THE TRIALS OF THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS was my first attempt at writing about a girl. I sculpted the girl after myself somewhat. I was shy when I was little and yet very independent, and interested in things most girls really weren't, like riding horses. When I was little, I dreamed of inheriting the family ranch and running a riding camp for city kids, where I could teach them to love horses and the country as much as I did. That concept, coupled with my liking of the medieval society of kings etc., I decided that my little girl would be the youngest of several children of a beloved royal family. Like me, she would be the black sheep of the family, though not overtly so. So, now I had a character, what to do with her? All powerful people, no matter how loved, have enemies, and of course, little girls doing things no self-respecting royal daughter would be caught dead doing, meant that she wasn't where she was expected to be when the royal family was brought low. Now, she was forced to become the best in the land at something she should never have been interested in in the first place in order to make the murderer of her family pay for his crimes. This one is 285 pages (81,581 words)

LORD OF THE LAND was another story that started with a dream. The scene was three young men dressed as soldiers coming into an inn. The innkeeper sees the king's men and as a retired soldier himself and loyal to the king, he'll feed and house them for a night. It was raining and miserable outside and the young soldiers looked much worse for the wear. One of them was wounded. Of course, it was the wounded one who became my main character. Who was he? Why was he here? Why were the three of them dressed in the uniform of soldiers they were too young to wear? All questions answered as he journeys through his life, trying to find peace and happiness only to have a past he can't escape rip his happiness away. Only then does he face the fact that he can't escape his past, he must face it head on and make things right. This story too has a less than happy ending, though a good one, I think. This book ended up being 316 pages long (88,790 words)

That's half of them. I'll continue telling you about my books next week. I hope you like the workings of my mind. Every story is a problem to be solved, a puzzle to be put together, or taken apart as the case may be. I'm always having these dreams and I have a folder full of scenes. Each one the seed of a new book or a scene in one started from another such dream.