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I just posted another piece I did for a writing prompt in my writers group that I attend weekly.  It’s called Night of the Clown, and you can read it here.

I also noticed that my last post involved a funky dream I had.  Well, I had another one last night.  This one involved Holly Holm, Reese Witherspoon, a zombie apocalypse, an ostrich, my old ’69 Camaro SS that got totaled, and an underwater military base.

Yeah…it was one of those dreams.  I woke up trying to figure out how you could avoid getting a severe vitamin deficiency and related conditions when you’re living in an underwater military base and all you have to eat is fish.  Seaweed was an option I thought of in my barely lucid mental state, but I don’t know how much that would help.  The long and the short of it is, thinking about it woke me up, so I got up and wrote another scene in Cindy’s Story.  I have three more chapters to do after this one, and then I’m going to go through a rather harsh editing process, because this will be the first book I’m doing a print version of, so I want to make sure it’s as good as I can possibly make it before it gets printed.  I really can’t wait to release this one.  There’s lots of great humor in it, and to be honest, I’m quite proud of how it’s all coming out.  I love the characters and I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun writing them.  It’s sad that I’ll have to say goodbye to them all after it’s over since this is just a standalone novel, but that’s all I ever intended it to be.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  If you haven’t read the other short story I wrote yet called The Tree, be sure to read it.  I’m extremely proud of that one.  It was something way different for me and I’ve been told it’s a real tear jerker.

So I just woke up from a pretty weird dream. This time I was in some town in the old west, only it looked like it was on some other planet or something. The dirt was all a deep, reddish brown, there was no vegetation and the buildings all had a similar coloration to them as well. The sky was a rich, reddish orange color as well. It was the sort of a color that you can see in the sky around sunset now and then, only for some reason I knew this was the natural color of the sky in that particular place.

I felt like the town was abandoned, but I was in a saloon where I think there was a bartender or something, though I don’t recall seeing anyone else. Anyway, as it turns out, the people were all just hiding because the Grim Reaper was coming. He’d been there before and everyone was afraid of him. Not realizing this, I went to the door of the saloon to look around outside. Straight out from the saloon the ground made a long slope up into a high hill, and atop the hill was another building. I feel like it was a store or a post office or something, but I couldn’t tell.

Just then, the Reaper came floating in along side of that building and then came shooting down the hill, directly at me. He wasn’t carrying his usual scythe. It was more like a spade of some kind that looked too big to wield, and it had marks all over it, as though it’d been ground into shape and sharpened on some huge grinding wheel.

I ran back into the saloon and closed the door, but it was no use. The reaper came up to the door and knocked it open like it was nothing. I stood before him and he simply stood there staring at me with an invisible face that was hidden by the cowl of his hood.

Resigned to my fate, I followed him outside. Once out there, I asked him if I might have just a few more days to put my affairs in order. I wanted to finish my latest book, say goodbye and all that sort of stuff, but he simply stood there and shook his head at me silently. He then turned and motioned for me to follow him.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I followed him as instructed. Where the ground started to slope up, there was like a large pond at the base of it off to the side, and around the pond the ground rose up into an embankment. As I turned my head to look at the pond, I saw something fly down out of the sky. It was a head on some sort of a plate, and it had small wings protruding from the back of the neck, though it wasn’t using them to fly.

It swooped down in front of the Reaper and landed on the ground, forcing him to stop. It looked up at him and said, “This is wrong. You were supposed to take the one who tends the bar in that place, not him.”

The Reaper seemed frustrated by this, almost like he wanted to argue, and that’s when I woke up. I figured I better write it all down before I forgot it. I do remember there was a dog in that town somewhere around the saloon, and I feel like there was a bartender in there somewhere, I can’t remember exactly.

Anyway, that’s it.  It’s also the reason I woke up again at 3:45am. 😛

Just finished chapter 12 of Cindy’s Story and I’m really happy with the way it’s all shaping up.  Can’t wait to finish this book so I can get it out there.  This is going to be the first book I’m making available in a print copy as well.  I’ll get around to doing that for the series at some point, but since this is a stand alone book, it’ll be a lot easier to do.

I don’t even know where to begin.  It all started about three weeks ago with a pinched nerve in my shoulder that wouldn’t let me get any restorative sleep.  Do you have any idea what three weeks of non-restorative sleep does to you?  Unless you’ve lived through it, there’s no way you can even begin to imagine.  I was bouncing in and out of depression even as much as several times a day at one point.  I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think, I was saying things that were totally out of character for me, my speech filter was only running at about 20%, I was forgetting common words, etc….  The worst was when I was talking to a friend and I couldn’t actually begin a sentence.  It just wouldn’t come out of my mouth.  It scared me.  Part of the problem was that even when the shoulder pain wasn’t stopping me from sleeping, the depression and all the thoughts I had running through my head did.  It became an endless, vicious cycle that I just couldn’t seem to break.  Fortunately my shoulder is doing better now and the extra sleep has staved off the depression, at least for now, so I’m crossing my fingers that things will finally be better.

During the last three weeks I only wrote like two scenes in chapter 12 of Cindy’s Story.  I’m going to try to write the next scene today.  Yesterday I got a fair amount of sleep, albeit in 2-3 hour spurts, but at least it was something.  I actually feel pretty good this morning, so hopefully I’m finally coming out of this whole thing and I can get back to being my old self again…and get back to work on the book full time instead of in bits and pieces like I have been.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  Just wanted to post a little update.

It will never matter what someone who doesn’t like you says about you. The only thing that matters is if you like yourself. If you’re happy with the person you are, then embrace it. If you’re not, then take the steps necessary to become the person you want to be, not the person others think you should be. There’s nothing greater one can strive for than to be true to oneself, and being true to oneself does not include changing to suit the opinions of those who will always find fault with you, no matter how much you acquiesce to their demands. These people should be excised from your life as a surgeon would remove a tumor, for the end result of keeping either will be the same.

I’m afraid I haven’t gotten much writing done for the last week and a half.  I did finish chapter 11 of Cindy’s Story yesterday, but I’ve been suffering from both insomnia and non-restful sleep syndrome due to a pinched nerve in my shoulder that’s finally getting better.  I actually got enough sleep to write some yesterday, and hopefully it’ll lead to more days like that.  I still have five chapters to go, so I’m not in the home stretch yet, but I’m progressing at least.  I have high hopes for this one.  There’s a lot of humor and some other really good stuff in it, and I’ve really enjoyed writing these characters.

I think my next series book will be the last one, and then I’ll move on to other projects.  I’d like to write more standalone books like the one I’m currently working on.  I’ve never found it difficult to come up with ideas, so I’m sure those will be great books as well…because I’m an awesome writer…and that’s why you should buy all my books…yeah! 😀

Anyway, just wanted to post a little update.  It’s 2:16 a.m. and I’m awake, but at least I got some good sleep yesterday and last night, so I got that goin’ for me.