The Growl Under Your Bed

Woke up from a nightmare, which I did not enjoy.  Oddly enough, I usually enjoy many of my terrifying dreams (as long as they don't involve my child).  I wake up my heart pounding and feeling alive.  Not this time.  Woke with a start and a momentary feeling of dread that dissipated as soon as I realized that it was just a dream.  As most of my strange dreams were, it was filled with a healthy dose of sex and violence (not combined).

I can trace the dream to the new manuscript I'm working on and some personal relationships.  It's not a bad thing, but the manuscript has the potential to really spin out of control, so I am being pretty careful with it.  Maybe I'll chart the progress here, sort of like a DVD commentary about a movie as it is being made.

I realized six pages into the manuscript that it was going directions I never foresaw.  In fact, some main points that I was pretty solid on going into it went out the window.  I love that feeling of chaos when it comes to these things because it lets me know that I have absolutely zero control of the story.  The downside of that is the dreams.

I believe that most characters I create have some piece of me in them.  Some personality trait of one sort or another.  (Only the major characters.)  When I did the cannibal manuscript it was apparent to me in the editing stage where those parts crept in.  With this manuscript, which will have very little in the way of redeeming qualities, the worst aspects of my personality are going to come out (at least at this point).  I haven't talked much about any one aspect of it with any one person, but what I have spilled has garnered some interesting reactions. 

The seed for this story started probably about ten years ago with the disappearance of Karen Mitchell, a local girl who has never been found.  This current manuscript branched out from an idea I have for a manuscript based around her disappearance (which I will probably still write).  It really started to come together about a year ago when I worked out the two main characters and their reason to exist in this story.  From there I developed a scene or two and their personalities.  That is as far as I ever go, though, before I start to write.  I never come up with the ending, for if I do I have no reason to tell the story.  I'm writing to see how it ends.  If I know, there is no reason to tell it.  I will be bored by it, and that will shine through.  I write because I want to know what is going to happen.  I have no idea going in where it will go, though I have a general idea in my head, but it changes (like it did by page six of this one).  Hell, my title even changed, mainly because I forgot the original, but also because the one I came up with was better.

The further on I go, the more intense the dreams will be, but I'll also be less of a mental mess.  Writing frees me up mentally.  I'm able to deal with people better.  I'm happier.

And so it begins ...