My first novel, By Moonrise, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com.
Wow, did I really write those words? I need to stop and pinch myself. I can’t really believe this is happening to me.
Fiction
Belatedly late update
I’ve been up to a lot lately, and sadly, blogging hasn’t been as high on my list as I’d like.
The important thing is that I’ve been writing a lot. Between my professional copywriting gigs and my novels, I generate a lot of extra vowels each day. I’ve also submitted two different short stories to contests, and I hope to do a few more of those in the next few months.
Tales of Androids and Gunslingers
Authors without readers are like house plants without water. While at first they are filled with life and promise, if they go unnoticed long enough, they will wither and fade away.
So it’s important that excellent books get the attention they deserve. Independent authors, who cannot rely on the marketing departments of traditionally-published authors, depend heavily on their readers to help promote their work and grow their careers. A key component of reader promotion comes in the form of book reviews, which play a huge part in selling books and bringing in new readers.
With that in mind, I recently finished two books that I enjoyed very much, and as a challenge, I decided to try reviewing them together. The books are The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree by S. A. Hunt and Brother, Frankenstein by Michael Bunker.
My journey to become a novelist
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I started my first novel as a senior in high school.
It began as a short story about two characters in a fantasy world, and as I recall was inspired by the 1980s Robin Hood television show. Before I began my novel, I had completed a beast of a project, a 20-page short story. It was for one of my classes, and until that point had been the longest thing I had ever written. After that challenge, I would have been scandalized if someone told me I could write an entire novel.
So I wasn’t writing a novel that day. I just had an image, a scene in my head that wouldn’t leave me alone.
The yellow post-it note
The yellow square was bouncing along the damp road, dancing in the wind like an autumn leaf.
She ran up to it, reached for it, missed. Close enough to see there was writing, she followed it on its random skips and hops down the street, passing several homes and apartment buildings. Half a block down, she finally caught it.
The ink had run, blurring part of the note, but she could still make out most of it.
She glanced around, at all of the homes on the block, all of the doors and windows shut tight, asleep, unseeing. The post-it must have been stuck to a door or window.
Stuffing it into her pocket, she turned around and walked back the way she came, a tear running down her cheek.
Someone hit your dog. I took him to [unreadable]
nothing they can do. Call me at 523-1[unreadable].
A 147 word response to today’s Daily Post prompt:
You stumble upon a random letter on the path. You read it. It affects you deeply, and you wish it could be returned to the person to which it’s addressed. Write a story about this encounter.
The Pink Suitcase
(This is a short story I wrote for a four-minute flash talk at the Automattic company meetup.)
My name’s Jake, and I’m a dream fixer.
You know that feeling when you’re in some weird place in a dream, and you don’t know anybody around you or what’s going on? That’s called ‘dream-hopping’—when you go into someone else’s thoughts when they’re asleep. Turns out we all do it.
The difference with fixers is, we dream-hop consciously, going into other people’s dreams to sort things out for them. I get plunked right into the middle of some random dream, figure out what’s going on, fix something, and then hop out again.
I figured out that’s what I was doing one night when, in the middle of a dream I happened to look in a mirror. Rather than my bald head and goatee, I saw this chick with curly brown hair. Freaked me out, lemme tell ya, and I started paying more attention to my dreams after that.
Now you might be wondering, who am I to fix other people’s dreams? What kind of qualifications do I have? Hell if I know. During the day I work at the corner bar and make small talk with people, but it’s not like I’m going to change the world. But my nights are different. I feel like a super hero—though it’s my secret since no one ever knows I was there.
One time I hopped into the dream of a grade school teacher. He’d been really annoyed with this kid in his class, Jimmy, who was always causing trouble: flinging pens, making gross noises, stuff like that. In the dream, I showed the teacher that Jimmy couldn’t read, but he was really good with numbers. I’d like to think the teacher gave Jimmy a little more attention after that. Who knows? Maybe Jimmy’s the next Einsten.
A couple nights ago I slipped into the dream of a ten-year-old boy, right when he asked, “Why did Jessie pack a suitcase full of her favorite things, and then leave it behind?”
In the dream I was Bobby’s best friend. We ran across the park, past the swings and the soccer field, and pulled ourselves under a chain link fence. We ran into Jessie’s yard, and snuck into the house through an open window. No one was home, and all the lights were out. But in the living room, standing like an unopened birthday present, was this shiny pink suitcase.
There was a creaking sound, and a thump, as Bobby flipped open each of the latches on the suitcase. Inside was a fuzzy blue sweater, a few paperbacks, a ceramic turtle. And Mr. Monkeybear. All packed with care.
We spent ages searching for clues. We snuck upstairs, and looked in the garage, and in the tall grass in the backyard, but we couldn’t figure out what had happened to Jessie. Had she died? Been shipped off to Grandma’s? Or was she even now laying in a hospital bed with leukemia? There was just no explanation.
Such things happen to dream fixers from time to time, and I thought I had gotten used to it. My job was just to fix what I could and move on, and not get too attached, you know? But it was different this time.
The next night, somehow I found myself dreaming again about Bobby’s quest, about the lost girl and the forgotten pink suitcase. Again we pulled ourselves under the chain link fence; again, we climbed into the empty house. I wanted to help Bobby out, but it wouldn’t ‘fix’ the dream if I put a fake ending on the story.
I was still groggy when I went to work the following day. It was slow, and most of my shift was spent pouring beers for Alfred, a lonely dude with three gold chains who camped out at our bar every Wednesday.
The day ran long, and Alfred’s voice became slower as he sank into his seat and his stomach filled with alcohol. What did he dream about? I wondered.
I was at the sink washing out pint glasses when out of the corner of my eye I saw someone new take a seat at the bar, and I heard Alfred offer to buy them a drink. It was a woman, just a bit younger than me, in a blue sweater.
And sitting on the stool beside her was a pink suitcase.
Damn.
It was at that moment that I realized my own dream had been fixed.
“The Pink Suitcase” is © copyright 2013 by Jackie Dana and may not be reproduced without permission.