Genius Will Not Be Rushed

One of my proofreaders emailed me last night asking, essentially, “Where’s the book?” She wants it. Actually, she wants it “yesterday.”

I tapped back hurriedly that it’s almost ready for her review. Really!

I will admit here I was at one chapter again tinkering last night. I’ve extra-wrestled with this one, and fought with it, and struggled with it for months. It’s a “dream sequence.” I have redone it several times after each version read to me, quite frankly, as ridiculous.

Please don’t suggest it. A vampire swooping down cannot solve this problem! No! No! No! 😉

I’ve finally gotten it now, methinks. It’s subtle enough, but a bit of a shocker. My main problem all along has been I don’t want it to read “like” a dream for the overwhelming bulk of it. I want readers to think it’s “real”…. and then, at the last second, in the manner of our own dreams during the night…. WHAM, when we awaken we realize we aren’t living it and it was all in our mind. And then it dawns on us what had led our mind down that “weird” route while we’d slept.

For readers, during the dream clues are also cagily dropped in…. and they have to seem innocuous, and similarly “real” too. Eventually they create an “AH, HA!” moment later in the text, when what had led to the bizarre dream becomes clear.

So if you’re reading this post (and YOU know who YOU are), the book’s nearly there.