What I learned from last night's dream:

When traveling to the underground kingdom of the Frost King, to face him and finally end his reign of terror in an epic battle to the death, accompanied by three silver doves, a family of warbears, and your guide (a glowing giant worm), be sure you have enough cash for everyone's subway fare, because the line at the ATM is murder during rush hour.

WIP dreams

The Eric Stevens giveaway is officially closed. I'll announce the winner early next week, and in that post I'll also include the final portrait, with ink and shading, of Eric Stevens, by Sean Tiffany.

Today, I'm back to my current WIP, aka YA MS the Third. It's my genuine obsession. Last night, I dreamed I was the protagonist, running around Greenpoint, visiting a bike repair shop that also served espresso drinks. It was a very cool place, and it was run by a guy named Jim, who I think was a counselor at my sleepaway camp when I was about ten or eleven. I'm not sure the idea of a coffee counter at a bike repair shop would be a good idea in reality*, and I don't think I need to add a cycling motif to the WIP at this point, but it was pleasant to dream about my characters a little. Protagonist wore some really cool jeans, like a member of the Smiths or something.

Speaking of the WIP, it's made the rounds in the Otters (my online crit group) and has gotten some very good and some very . . . errr, constructive comments. Good: nice writing! Bad: no plot! So I have gone back to the beginning and written up a nice beefy synopsis that I think has added quite a lot of tension and hopefully a nice arc and all that story stuff. Now I need to start the rewrite. So what am I doing here, blogging?

*Um, apparently it is a good idea, since there is a popular one right here in the Twin Cities.

Dreamland

Two days in a row! Now we're talkin'.

Sam and I just returned from an hour long walk, all across Midway and back, essentially. It is nearly the perfect temperature out there, in my humble opinion (I wrote it out!), and the cool breeze is even nice if one has a brisk pace and needs some air on one's neck now and then.

Christy Raedeke asks on her blog today about ideas for books coming in dreams. My bio with Stone Arch Books highlights my tendency to get ideas in my sleep, and of course MG Book was so inspired. In fact, that book came up in dreamland several more times, leading to additional scenes and so many great concepts that MG Book is now MG Trilogy, woefully unfinished.

Beth will no doubt recall the night, back in 2004, I think, that I jumped up from the bed and ran to my computer. I'd been inspired in dream to write an adult piece of fiction, one that I still believe has a lot of promise. If I ever really feel like working very, very, very hard on a very, very complicated literary novel, I'll return to it. If I can find it! Uh oh. Anyway, in future, it's LF MS.

My point, though, if I have one, is that I haven't had a really excellent dream inspiration in too, too long, and I think I can safely blame the fact that I'm just not sleeping as well as I used to.

They say parents should expect to remain exhausted for the first twelve months of their baby's life, and that the overwhelming tiredness begins to fade (who knows how quickly?) thereafter. If that's true, maybe I'll be able to rely on dreams for inspiration again someday.

Meanwhile, I better get back to work on YA MS the Second. And Eric Stevens' next project. Oh, and maybe some Mad Libs. And the next FTM. And . . .