Short Story: Dreams Awake

Dreams Awake began as a novel idea, but became a story of awkward length. At 17,000 words, it's far too long to be a short story, but too small to be a novella. I've been sitting on it for a couple of months. One of these days, I plan to take a fresh look at it. It needs a major structural edit, for one. I'll also examine the scenes to try to find the slow spots.  If I think I can pull off removing 10,000 words, next I'll try to pump up the tension with the rewrite. It's Psychological Suspense, technically Horror, but right now I feel like a poser just thinking the word.

An excerpt for Dreams Awake is here. Happy Monday!

Saturday Snark

So, about a year ago, I was working on a short story and had an idea to borrow Cole Fenton as a sassy gay friend for my haunted schoolteacher, Kim. If you have read any of Marie Sexton's "Coda" series, Cole needs no introduction. For the rest of you, I highly recommend "Strawberries for Dessert"...if you can stand a little man-on-man action. (Seriously, it's one of my favorite novels EVER.)  Marie liked the scene enough to fix the parts that weren't Cole enough and get permission from Dreamspinner to let me try to publish it. Samhain Horror turned it down for unspecified reasons.

I love this conversation too much to let it languish on my hard-drive, and it's Cole...by virtue of his presence, it's mostly snarky.

When the clock finally read 7:30 pm, making it 9:30 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Kim took one last long look at her phone’s address book. She put down her wine glass and tapped the link for Father Chuckie. The man who answered on the third ring spoke so sweetly it made her teeth hurt.

“Hello Lovey!”

Kim pulled the phone away from her ear. She expected to see a picture of her white-collared brother-in-law, so the man flirting at her from behind sharply cut locks of cinnamon brown hair startled her. Cole Fenton, the caller id told her, complete with his digits.

As she returned the phone to her ear, distracted by wonder at how she called him instead of Chuckie, she asked uncertainly, “Cole?”

“Who else, darling?” he asked. “How are the little Whos down in Whoville?”

“Worland,” she corrected him.

“I know, dear,” Cole replied bemused. “But I doubt you called to give me a geography lesson.”

The answer to the mystery wading through her wine-addled brain finally settled into place. She wished she hadn’t picked up the phone. “No, I….” She explained apologetically, “My contacts…I was calling Father Chuckie….” Did she really just admit to Cole Fenton that she called him by mistake?

“Oh sweetie! I haven’t heard from you in ages, and now you’re telling me I’m nothing more than a wrong number? I’m a little bit offended…” Kim heard mumbling on the call, but all she caught was Johnny, darling, before he continued his previous thought, “…and terribly intrigued.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kim said, deeply annoyed at herself. “I’m sure I’m interrupting….”

“Nonsense,” Cole said brightly. She heard a door shut softly. “I never let my phone interrupt me, darling.”

Kim paused, trying to collect her thoughts through the tangle of emotions and haze of alcohol. His voice took her back fifteen years, to Colorado State, and one particularly bad day when the man she had been dating for six months gave her a list of excuses and tried to assure her that it was him and not her. At the very least, he was finally honest about not being a one-woman guy, but it hadn’t made the break-up any easier.

After a few days of moping around like a zombie, a classmate from her poetry class knocked on her door and said, We have three days and I have four words for you, Kimmy dear, powder, wine, day spa.

“I can’t…”

Sure you can.

“I have homework…”

[Scoff]…Virgin ears!

“I need clothes…”

Neiman Marcus.

“I don’t feel like skiing…”

You’re precious, darling. Now get in the car.

That was Cole Fenton in a nutshell. Charming, demanding, gracious, caring, and usually right about people. Hearing his voice erased away years. It put her back on the slopes, cutting powder through the Back Bowls in Vail. It made her want to tell him everything.

“Kimmy?” he asked, prompting her to give him a hint she was still on the line.

“So…Johnny,” she said, stalling. “Gardener? Driver? Bartender?” She took the rest of her wine in a gulp.

“Husband,” Cole said. She spit out the wine across the table, “accountant.”

“Yours?” she coughed.

“Dear lord, love! Do you need an ambulance?”

“You’re married?” Kim croaked, “To your accountant?”

“It’s not as cliché as it sounds, darling,” Cole said, sounding delighted at her shock. “He was my lover and then my…

“When?!” Kim exclaimed in shock. Cole’s married? COLE?

“Last year,” he replied. “It really has been too long, love. I think Chuckie might say something dreadfully close to ‘God’s telling you something’.”

“Well, mazel tov,” Kim laughed aloud. “Jon’s a lucky man.”

“He is, isn’t he, and thank you for saying so.” Then Cole tossed mantle of voracious gossip around him like a feather boa. “Now…I think you owe me for that regrettable slight. I simply must know why you’re drunk-dialing a priest?”

Kim snickered sadly at his question as she poured another glass. She hadn’t wanted to talk to Chuckie; she needed to talk to someone and Chuckie could be trusted not to say anything to Henry or anyone else. But, it was Cole’s comfort that she had been craving since Henry left.

“I got served,” she told him heavily, breathing in the fragrance of the South African red. She could almost feel the cozy surroundings of Cole’s Vail condo around her.

“That certainly explains the intoxication,” he said. “Tell me what you’re drinking, love. I’m sure I have it and I know that you don’t like to drink alone.”

Kim opened her eyes, disappointed to find herself alone at a laminated MDF table probably made in the 1960’s. She picked up the wine glass and watched the dark liquid swirl.

Cole gave her this bottle at her wedding in Bermuda and told her she would know what it was for when the time came. She supposed subconsciously she knew what was coming when she packed the rest of the bottles a few weeks back and felt compelled to keep this one on hand. She supposed she should have realized what she was seeking when she uncorked the bottle that afternoon.

“Pinot Noir, Galpin Peak, 1990.”

“Oh, Kim,” Cole said softly, the flamboyant affectation entirely gone. “I am sorry.”

If would like more Snark (and aren't easily offended)...click here.

Out for Submission!!

January Black is out to six agents, one of whom requested a 20-page partial. Dreams Awake has been submitted to Samhain. And now we wait.

For the moment...at least until Saturday...I'm turning my attention to Gossamer.

DA V3 and American History

Yes...I know I just said I was done with the second draft. And now, I proudly announce that I'm done with the third draft. I'm putting it down now...giving myself from space from it. If anyone's interested, I have files available for iPad and Kindle. :) I'm always up for more proofreaders!

I've been doing some research this week on a special week in history...April 9-15, 1865. Anyone have an idea what happened during this week? Anyone? Okay fine, I'll tell you.

• April 9, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox.
• April 11, President Abraham Lincoln gives the last speech of his presidency, and mentions, among other things, suffrage right for freed blacks.
• April 11, Lincoln has a dream where he sees his body lying in repose. He is informed by a man in his dream that it is the president who was assassinated.
• April 14, Lincoln attends a play at the Ford Theater, where he is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth.
• April 15, Lincoln passes.

Meanwhile, in the Great Plains, a man named Colonel Chivington was on trial for leading a massacre on native women and children at a place called Sand Creek. A Captain Soule, an abolitionist and by all accounts, a genuinely good human being, testified against him. Soule was assassinated on April 24, 1865, ten days after Lincoln.

So...WTH am I doing looking into American History? Well...I'm building an alternative timeline, which means that I have to change something. So...I'm taking a look at April 1865.

If Lincoln didn't go to the theater...he doesn't get shot. Andrew Johnson doesn't become president and the Reconstruction happens differently. And what if...in the process...Lincoln alive and well on April 15, 1865, (and Soule ten days later) directly results in a very different western US as well.

But don't get too wrapped up in all that. Gossamer is still  a 21st century cyberpunk romance. My new 1865 is intended only to provide the foundation for a world I intend to tear down.

Dreams Awake 2nd Draft

Done. Done. Done. :) It's a good thing.

My son has taken a crack at editing it. Has scribbled his criticism in red pen over most of the pages. Gotta love a 3-yo with an opinion.

Flu Crummies

It's been what...10 days since I posted. That's pathetic. I'm still getting over the Flu crummies. It's not an excuse, just the situation.

A reader who is a fan of the horror genre pointed out a flaw with Dreams Awake. She never felt like Kim was scared. Hm. Well that's not good. So, for the past few days, I've been working in Kim being scared. Or trying to. I've been thinking about a deaf girl in my sculpture class years ago. She found all scary movies disappointing. That's because movie producers use sound to evoke fear and she couldn't hear the sound. Second draft is almost done. I think I may need to drag out some EA Poe before I tackle third draft. He was good at building suspense.

Gossamer's stalled. The flu scared the muse away. I've told her that I'm not contagious, but she isn't returning my phone calls.

Dreams Awake/Illness Update

So...cold turned out to be something else entirely. It's actually one of those 72-hour of a viruses...and the bitch is overstaying her welcome. I spent all day Friday, most of Saturday, and most of Sunday in bed. And you'd think with all that time stuck in one place that I could write...yeah, no. When I wasn't shivering to death, I had no concentration at all. I did manage to complete an edit of Dreams Awake late yesterday, though.

Actually, I'm still in bed today. I'm drinking coffee and water, and trying not to open my mouth unnecessarily. Opening my mouth causes air to come in, dries my throat, and then I start coughing which upsets my diaphragm and causes pain in my chest. But...husband is at work and son is at school...so I don't have to talk out loud.

I've created a new page for Dreams Awake and posted the opening scene, for those of you who might be interested in reading it.

Gossamer is sitting at 4400 words. I like what's down so far, but not sure where I want to go next. I hate that. I may have to skip forward and work my way back.

Passed the 1st Checkpoint!

I got an email from Ellora's Cave this week. JB has passed their submissions persons. It's been placed in the editorial queue. I should hear whether they're interested in 1-6 months. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping they split the difference.

Dreams Awake is in 2nd Draft stage. Two beta readers have responded well to the story. I'm still finding artifacts of the first draft, though. Now that it's converted to HTML, I'll be working to get rid of those so I can convert to ePub. If you have an Apple mobile device with iBooks, I'll be happy to send it along if you'd like to give me an impression. And if you have a Kindle, my darling husband can hook you up.

Gossamer...I have about 5?...thousand words so far. The narration is a bit different than anything I've ever done before. Rhys was the heir to a technology company before it was ripped apart by domestic terrorism and scandal. He comes out of hiding ten years later a bit cynical as well as self-deprecating. I thought that might be typical of his archetype, the rich kid lands prestigious job, bangs an employee who turns out to be a professional thief (yawn.) But...I think cynical and self-deprecating will be interesting traits for a demigod. Yes, I just said demigod. Gossamer is a romance. Alternate timeline. Cyberpunk. Paranormal. The Germans won WWII. America's a bit isolationist...and by 'bit', I mean energy independent with hermetically-sealed borders. And Paris Hilton has a cameo. I know what you're probably thinking. You're wrong about that. :wink:

Dreams Awake

I finished the first draft of Dreams Awake. It's come in at just over 13,000 words. And after struggling with several days with what genre it fits into, I've decided to go with horror. Yes, I said horror. Hear me out.

The Horror Writers' Association, whose first president was Dean Koontz, says that horror is not a genre. The publishing and movie industry have misled us into thinking that horror is about blood and gore, when in fact, it must simply "elicit an emotional reaction that includes some aspect of fear or dread." I loved this bit regarding the Bible as horror: where else can you find fallen angels, demonic possessions, and an apocalypse absolutely terrifying in its majesty all in one volume?


So...Dreams Awake, a psychological suspense story, is horror. Almost....


It's in first draft stage. I think the experience is clearly terrifying for the protagonist. But...I'm not sure that the reader is quite drawn into the terror. There are some scenes that need to be tweaked, some key moments that need to be worked...some character development to work out. 


January Black news: Nothing new at the moment, which is a good thing. It means I wasn't instantly rejected. 

New Projects

I decided to send JB out to 2 publishers for now...if neither bite, hopefully one or the other will respond with a critique...I can polish and send to two more.

I'm determined not to look at JB until then, so I am occupying myself with two new projects. I've mentioned Dreams Awake before. I think first draft might even come in under 15k. I've been able to get the key scenes in and it's moving along quickly.

Gossamer is an idea I've been kicking around for a while. It started as a rewrite of Circle of the Butterfly, which was scrapped when I realized the original was fine and pulled 80k words out of it instead. But I really liked a lot of what I wrote, so I've been cannibalizing it. One still frame image became January Black. And now, one chapter has become the Gossamer Prologue.

If I can put all of the pieces in my head together, Gossamer will be a novel length, Science Fiction Romance. Alternate timeline/steampunk. 

I'm toying with the idea of having Germany win World War II by mounting a campaign on the Middle East instead of Russia. One theory suggests that if German had control of oil, that they would have won the war no problem. Think about that. No Cold War with Russia. No East/West Berlin. No wall for Reagan to demand be torn down. No NATO. No United Nations. The suggestion is that with the US isolated, Germany could have mounted an attack and we'd be living under a Swastika now. 

I'm thinking no to that. Like I said...playing with it.

Bombs Away!

Today, I clicked submit and sent my baby away to Samhain Publishing and Ellora's Cave. Last year, Samhain rightly rejected my submission for 'Circle of the Butterfly'. After a little research, I realize that I did NOTHING right on that submission. (Insert me hiding my face in shame).

I am crossing my fingers that I didn't overlook something dumb this time. The email from Ellora's Cave suggests a 2 day to 3 week window for initial response, so I should know soon enough.

In the next few days, I hope to submit to two more publishers: Red Sage and Carina Press. I haven't abandoned the idea of getting an agent. I've made a list and I'm keeping it on standby. But, having published work could help me get an agent, so I think I'm going to hold back and see if the digital publishers bite. In the meantime, I'll focus on Dreams Awake.

Speaking of...my target length for Dreams Awake is 20k. I started it with the plan writing 80 to 100k, which is my comfort zone. But the story wants a much quicker pace than I usually work with. The action of the story jumps from a bad day into a worse nightmare and back again. Even 60k would be a stretch, unless I used stream of consciousness, which I won't. I am comfortable calling myself a writer, but James Joyce I am not. However...20k would be a challenge for me. It'll be the first short story I've attempted in 16 years.

Hello Internet!

To my friends, old and new, I'd like to welcome you to my new website.

Since this is a new year and all, I've decided for 2011, I'm going to try and publish 'January Black'. That is the purpose of this website. Whether I attempt to find an agent or online publisher, or simply upload to Amazon's Kindle site, I'm going to have to market my work. I hope to keep you informed on my progress, share what I learn, and maybe even give you sneak peaks of my new project, Dreams Awake. But first things first....

'January Black' began in November 2009 as a National Novel Writing Month project. I failed to make 50k in one month, but finished the novel in April of 2010. Since then, it has been in a perpetual state of editing. The first chapter has been read by Authonomy members all over the world, while an apparently lacking query letter has been politely rejected by the Knight Agency. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

So...Happy New Year, and I hope you'll follow along with my adventure next year.