Monday, May 13, 2013

I had a dream

The other night I woke from a nightmare. This is not so unusual, I often have nightmares and wake terrified and convinced there is something really really bad in the house. But generally I don't remember much of it, and the little bit that I do remember dissipates into wisps in my minds eye even as I try to catch the edges.

This one however, was quite stunning in complexity, and stayed with me even as I woke fully. Maybe that was because for a split second when I opened my eyes I thought I saw the main subject of the nightmare, a werewolf, striding through my bedroom door. That this was impossible occurred to me almost immediately so I didn't dive under the covers and cower at the bottom of the bed. It's a physical impossibility for me to see anything but vague shadows as my eyesight is so poor that without glasses or contacts the world is foggy, no edges and no real form. I know this only too well so I realised I was still in the dream for that second when I opened my eyes.

Then I began to think through the dream and man, was it complicated. It was about werewolves, and I was a journalist who, along with a few others from around the world, had stumbled onto a link between the weather and a series of gruesome murders. The whole dream was detailed, clear and precise. So detailed in fact that I made notes (and if you've been paying attention you'll know that is something I never do), and in the morning I realised that I had created an entire world in that dream. A clear and precise world with guidelines and parameters.  A world with characters already formed, a story already mostly written. Well, never look a gift horse in the mouth (another thing I love is these old sayings that have come down through the generations), if I have been gifted an outline from my subconscious then I should write it, right? (Homophones, love them too)

Except that this is a paranormal story, and I've never even tried to write one of those. I read them, voraciously, both good and bad (and there's a lot of bad) but I have never felt even the tiniest pull to write one. Plus, I'm deep in my Facebook novel and that is the first of a series of four. I have a quandary here. I'm loving writing the Facebook novel, as yet un-named as you may have guessed. I'm really looking forward to expanding the characters in this book as each one gets to tell her own story in succeeding books. But this werewolf story is sticking in my head, and I know little tendrils are swirling around because every now and then another part of the story will tease the edges of my thoughts. I really have to write it.

So what to do? I don't want to stop writing the others, but I have to write this one too. Well there's only one solution, and it's pretty obvious. I'll have to write them both at the same time. I don't know if I can do it, switch stories and characters smoothly so that each book rings true. I also don't know if I can write a paranormal novel. But I can't focus on one without thinking of the other. So maybe if I write both I can focus on both equally.

Well I won't know if I don't try, so I'm going to give it a go. That's pretty much the story of life really. Just because something has always been done one way, or a life has been lived one way, it doesn't mean change is impossible or infeasible.  So I'm back to the whole bending and flexing with change thing. Every avenue of my life right now is pushing me to be more adaptable to change, more open to change and more welcoming of change. And really, how bad can it be? I'm feeling that something good is just around the corner and all I have to do is relax, go with the flow and accept it, whatever it is. It just may be a change that makes my whole life the way it was meant to be. Who knows? Certainly not me, and not anyone else either. But I'm the only one who can drop my barriers, and let change happen. So what the hell, here's to opening myself to change :)


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