So much going on

A trip to the ER, a positive pregnancy test, and a vacation later...

I'm here. :)

Last night I had a dream. I dreamed of a military group, underground, complete with barracks. A resistance, but with a full army at the ready.

I'm not sure what they're fighting, or why, or what they're going to do. I know there is a white woman and a black man, and she is rewarded with a command and him as second in command so they can have private time together thanks to an extreme act of heroism/sacrifice. (Holy runon sentence, batman!)

I realized that this is my childhood tale of the Wildcats, a silly little story of an orphan who discovers a massive underground military society in the woods behind her orphanage. The man she eventually fell in love with was named Leapard (and I deliberately misspelled it, thinking it was cool.)

It was a silly story, but there's a grain of potential there. I think that with some polished steel, airships, space capability and advanced computers, I could make a decent sci-fi out of it. I'm going to have to work hard to keep it from becoming romnace-ish. The relationship isn't the point, it's simply just a part of the story. I also vow to have more than two characters. With a facility as large as the one I dreamed of last night, there HAS to be more.

What Dreams May Come

Had a fascinating dream last night that gave me the change in story direction I needed to get Hacker Dragon back on track. I was writing, but it was slow as molasses... and then I came up with the next twist to get it moving again.

I get a lot of material from dreams. I have very brilliant, colorful, vivid dreams. Sometimes very strange ones, at that. I've got another tale in the works, a seed of an idea that is germinating as we speak. It came straight out of a very bizarre dream involving a blue dragon, hiding in a mudslide, and a strange post-war environment of refugees. I've now got a tale in my head that tells the story of an amnesiac sniper who must discover his identity... all the while he is now working against the people he used to work for.

I don't know where it's going, but I do know what the final confrontation will look like.

Dreams are a fertile source of ideas for me. I was trained very early in life to remember my dreams, and I've gotten quite good at it. I usually lose a little of the "feel" of a dream, but I do remember most of them. Enough to build my stories on. I also tend to work out nasty plot knots as I lie in bed, trying to fall asleep. Given that it generally takes me at least an hour to fall asleep (sometimes longer), that's usually a lot of very focused concentration. Which usually leads to more dreams, more ideas, and I literally work out my novel's problems while I dream.

It's a good system, and works for me.