What Dreams May Come

Fuseli's 'The Nightmare'

I have extremely vivid, detailed dreams. Sometimes they can be terrifying, sometimes hilarious... or so teasingly authentic in the moment that I wake up feeling ripped off because my finances were FINALLY in good and abundant order! Meh!

Last night involved one of the more quirkily detailed meanderings of my bizarre subconsciousness. I was visiting a friend's new flat. They'd just moved into a place overtop a defunct restaurant on the high street of some touristy English town. The building dated back a few centuries, but it couldn't have been heritage listed considering what the landlords had done to it...

The Tudor facade was barely discernable beneath a horrible layer of 'decorative' corrugated metal sheeting covering the jutting top floor. The bottom half had been thickly coated with gobs of plaster resembling toothpaste and then glossily whitewashed to death, and the boarded up windows had tacky wooden shutters that I supposed were meant to simulate a sort of cheesy Swiss Alps effect. Flanking the former restaurant's doorway were a pair of matching built-in 'planters'. They appeared to be made from old metal feeding troughs, now badly rusted and full of random bits of rubbish. As my friend seemed unmoved by the appalling state of the place, I politely asked if the landlord was planning on restoring it to its original state. 'No,' they assured me. 'The restaurant itself was such a well-known destination in the '70s that they've decided to preserve it just as it is.'

At this point, they reverently waved their hand at the fading faux-Gothic lettered sign over the restaurant door, which read: 'Ye Olde Lithuanian Pilaf Markt'.

Huh? Talk about taking the concept of fusion cuisine to a whole new level! Why does my brain DO this to me?? I think I woke myself up giggling.

Mostly, I am grateful that I possess such a fertile imagination. The only time it can be a worry is when I experience a minutely detailed nightmare... dreams that are more like a 'night terror'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terror The palpable sense of horror and fear is overwhelming, and my mind has conjured up imagery and situations that would make even the most ardent guts-and-gore horror movie fan throw up in their popcorn. I am grateful that such dreams are rare.

Sometimes, this can be handy. I have used dreams as a leaping off point for a short story, or as a section in my longer fiction. In 'Base Spirits', there's a segment which is more or less a blow-by-blow retelling of nightmare I had about my characters while I was writing an early draft. Having been haunted by increasingly horrific visions of Calverley Old Hall's tragic past during her stay, Clara finds she is unable to shut off her mind from the echoes of the terror left behind by the murderous former lord of the manor:


A new visitation--
Clara walks across the grounds toward Calverley Old Hall. Opening the door, she steps into the coolness of the front foyer as the door clicks shut behind her. She blinks to adjust her vision to the dim light. Two small figures slowly approach from the gloom at the base of the stairs.
  Children. The older child must be one she’d heard-- and felt-- die. He gazes up at her, his face pale, his dark eyes mutely pleading. At his side is a smaller child wearing an identical white sleeping gown. The children stand before her, holding hands and watching her expectantly. She cannot move. The boys drift forward as one, and each boy reaches out his free hand to clutch at Clara. She wants to back away, but pity for them holds her in place. Clara glances down and watches their fingers sink into the indigo silk of her gown’s voluminous skirts.
       “Mama-- ”
  A loud thud on the floorboards upstairs cause all three of them to jump. The boys’ sad eyes stare up at the ceiling.
        “It’s Papa-- ”
         The familiar voice of the eldest child echoes in the back of her skull, just as the Woman’s had in the clarity of her last dream. The children’s fingers tighten on the folds of her dress.
“Stay with us. Bear witness.”
         Heavy footsteps pound toward the top of the stairs. A voice booms out:
  “Are you there with thy bastards, whore?”
         Clara yanks her skirts free of the boys’ grasp and dives for the door. The abandoned children follow, their mouths open in silent wails. She feels sorry for them, but she does not wish to stay and face the man they call Papa. Wildly, she tugs at the door-handle, feeling the cold little hands reach for her, as the heavy boots stomp down the stone steps. The door holds fast. The children begin to scream. The man’s voice is right behind her, shouting:
           “Whore! Whore! Whore-- ”

            “Wrroof! Woof-woof-- ”
            A dog barking outside summons Clara back.

~ From 'Base Spirits'- Chapter Six
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Base-Spirits-ebook/dp/B005L38G8E
Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Base-Spirits/book-bVfWrCigB0qRm6jfFq_MhQ/page1.html
Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Base-Spirits-Ruth-Barrett/dp/1453643001

Today, after my weird mental wanderings, I'm find my waking imagination is unusually fired up. I'm currently working on 'In the Bag'-- book one of The Dead Drunks mystery series-- and this morning I could barely keep up with all of the ideas and plot twists and character revelations pouring down into my skull from wherever my Muse lives. I feverishly made notes and sketches for multiple scenes... finding new answers to resolve nagging plot puzzles and story gaps at every turn.

No, I am not going to set a scene at 'Ye Olde Lithuanian Pilaf Markt.'. Maybe I should!

What about you? Have you ever felt so inspired by dream imagery that you incorporated it into your fiction? Tell us about it!

An Overnight Success... in Only 25 Years!

This post is all about being in it for the long haul.

Let me tell you about my dear friend Stephen Ayres. (Remember that name. You'll start hearing about him soon, I promise... and not just here on my blog.)

Cheers to Success!

I met Steve in our first year at Trent University in 1986. He was relatively shy compared to my general 'out there' self, but we were in a lot of the same classes and the same residence hall. He came to see me in a terrible play I was in during first term, and we both worked on a production of Othello later in the year: him backstage and me 'out there' as Emilia. We also ended up doing some short films around campus-- just 'cause we wanted to.

Steve was-- and is-- a 'film guy'. He loves movies. He has a quick wit, a great eye, and a way with storytelling. He's always wanted nothing more than to be a part of it all. After earning his BA at Trent, he moved on to Ryerson for film and the shy guy really blossomed.

Jump ahead a few years.

Steve met and married a lovely Australian woman, Kim. They ended up living Down Under in Sydney and have two great kids... now teenagers. Kim works in health, and has become very busy in her career with a cancer foundation and the specialty training of nurses. Steve ended up working in banking and finance for years, and all but put the idea of filmmaking on the back-burner. Where does the time go?

Yes. Where does it go? And what about the idealistic dreams and goals we have in our younger days? Do they ever entirely vanish, even as people build a family and a home, and make all those realistic tough decisions along the way... like getting a 'real' job? Who was that clean-shaven guy in the mirror wearing a suit and heading out everyday to a job he loathed in the core of Sydney's financial district?

So-- a few years ago-- a very unhappy Steve decided to give himself a little time to get back to screenwriting and see what he could do. Kim's job is good, and he took a package from the bank when he left. It was enough to buy some time: not indefinite, but a bit of breathing and writing space.

He sweated over ideas and honed scripts. Pitched to agents and producers. Felt hope. Saw hope dashed. Made his kids' lunches and ironed their school uniforms. Cooked dinner for Kim and did the laundry and the yard work. Soul searched. Nearly gave up but never did. Got into some prestigious Australian screenwriting programs, and inched further ahead toward that elusive dream.

Finally, a couple of years ago, a big producer finally took proper notice of one of his many scripts. Su Armstrong produced a little movie called Good Will Hunting. You may have heard of it.

Wow. Surely this was the proverbial 'it'. Any second now his film would be shot and hit the big time, right?

Not quite.

It still took a lot of back-and-forthing. A lot of pitching to get a director and a cast on board. That meant chasing a lot of dead ends and the heartache of schedule conflicts. Even with the main players falling into place, funding still needed to be secured... and that meant getting an international distributor on board to win the funding bodies' confidence. It's a long, slow state of limbo with no guarantee.

But? He kept that hope alive through some very dark moments.

And we don't get there alone, folks. His family and friends stuck by, and enough people along the way believed in his writing to make it happen. And now a distribution agent is backing the film... and suddenly it's a go!

I am THRILLED to be able to tell you that my pal's screenplay 33 Liberty Lane is going to be shot this summer directed by Peter Hewitt. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sandra-oh-emily-watson-nia-vardalos-melora-hardin-317904 Yep. That's the Hollywood Reporter carrying the story. And yes, those are the incredible women who are starring in MY old buddy's first produced script! Not too shabby.

I am so, so proud of Steve. For over two decades I've watched-- from up close and at a distance-- as he took baby steps forward and got shoved back time and time again by bad luck and circumstance, and the vagaries of the film industry, and real life and family being more important. Here we are at last!

This story is an example to all of us who struggle to keep that spark of hope alive through the darkest of times. We can do this. We CAN.

Now go follow your own paths, and I'll stop blogging and get back to my novel in progress.