My apologies if you already read this elsewhere.
Had another one of those dreams lately. You know the ones... no, wait, you don't. That could mean anything.
Every now and then I have a dream that... inspires me in some way. Some aspect of the dream, some event or emotional reaction sticks with me the next day, such that I have to try and capture it through my writing. A dream about a woman of mystery and a quest inspired Jade Monkey and, indirectly, its replacement, the Very Long Night of Tyler and Selena. The main plot of Salvage was taken almost directly from a dream, although polished to make it legible.
I had another one Thursday night. The, shall we say, plot was... variable. Unimportant. No matter what it was, it always came back to the girl. Or rather, the lack of a girl. The one constant factor, no matter where the dream took me, was a fabricated piece of family history. There had been another family, good friends of ours, that lived down the street. 2 parents and a daughter. My brother was sweet on her, had been for most of his childhood. Then one day, she was... assaulted. Badly. And went away. She'd been gone for years. And so my dream was haunted by a girl who didn't even appear. But her absence weighed down on everything.
As I said, the plot shifted and the quests varied. I was a cop, a sorcerer, Doctor Who (the current one), but no matter what was happening it always came back to her house. Her parents, sleepwalking through life. Her room, a memorial to happier times. My brother and I, each quietly mourning the way things were, then stunned to get word from her: apparently there were times when I didn't even remember that she was still alive.
And so it stuck with me, all the way to Saskatoon. The only thing to do seemed to be to write it out. Not sure if there's a script here. But whatever's there isn't happy. I worry that it's going to be playing with my headspace for a while. I worry that it's going to involve topics I may have no place discussing... although there may be a personal demon or two to exorcise in the process.
There was an epilogue regarding the Doctor Who portion of the dream, but it would likely only be of interest to fans of the show, and possibly not even them. So we'll skip that. Let's just say it's kind of good to be writing again: other than some initial rewrites on Salvage, I've barely written a word since Musketeers wrapped. Time to get moving on something.
Had another one of those dreams lately. You know the ones... no, wait, you don't. That could mean anything.
Every now and then I have a dream that... inspires me in some way. Some aspect of the dream, some event or emotional reaction sticks with me the next day, such that I have to try and capture it through my writing. A dream about a woman of mystery and a quest inspired Jade Monkey and, indirectly, its replacement, the Very Long Night of Tyler and Selena. The main plot of Salvage was taken almost directly from a dream, although polished to make it legible.
I had another one Thursday night. The, shall we say, plot was... variable. Unimportant. No matter what it was, it always came back to the girl. Or rather, the lack of a girl. The one constant factor, no matter where the dream took me, was a fabricated piece of family history. There had been another family, good friends of ours, that lived down the street. 2 parents and a daughter. My brother was sweet on her, had been for most of his childhood. Then one day, she was... assaulted. Badly. And went away. She'd been gone for years. And so my dream was haunted by a girl who didn't even appear. But her absence weighed down on everything.
As I said, the plot shifted and the quests varied. I was a cop, a sorcerer, Doctor Who (the current one), but no matter what was happening it always came back to her house. Her parents, sleepwalking through life. Her room, a memorial to happier times. My brother and I, each quietly mourning the way things were, then stunned to get word from her: apparently there were times when I didn't even remember that she was still alive.
And so it stuck with me, all the way to Saskatoon. The only thing to do seemed to be to write it out. Not sure if there's a script here. But whatever's there isn't happy. I worry that it's going to be playing with my headspace for a while. I worry that it's going to involve topics I may have no place discussing... although there may be a personal demon or two to exorcise in the process.
There was an epilogue regarding the Doctor Who portion of the dream, but it would likely only be of interest to fans of the show, and possibly not even them. So we'll skip that. Let's just say it's kind of good to be writing again: other than some initial rewrites on Salvage, I've barely written a word since Musketeers wrapped. Time to get moving on something.