What happens when the main character of your great, unwritten epic tracks you down to find out why you haven’t written her story? Read The Price of Dreams to find out. With a projected length of 30,000 words, The Price of Dreams is intended to be a 9 chapter novella drawn closely from my life, and offering a glimpse of...

I came across an old scrap from my writing class at UoP. It’s a perfect scene for The Price of Dreams, but alas, I didn’t find it sooner. It really catches the mood I was in when I had the dream. I prefer not to make any revisions in the middle of a draft–especially when I’m posting the work in progress, so I’m...

Jan 11, 2014, 7:29:20 PM I woke up disoriented, in a strange place, feeling absolutely exhausted. I didn’t know what woke me or how long I’d been asleep, but it seemed like I’d been trying to get a decent night’s sleep for years. When my life started falling apart, and the specter of homelessness started to loom over...

Jan 13, 2014, 4:49:19 PM Under normal circumstances, I’d be inclined to explore the premise and implications of actual, discrete realities, but when the embodiment of your imagination drags your unconscious ass off the street to discuss your failure to write her story, well, we’re obviously not talking about a normal...

Jan 16, 2014, 9:17:34 PM Her attention seemed to withdraw from the world into some all consuming inner vision. I don’t know if it was the little mind trick she’d just pulled on me, or if it was the fact that I’ve had the story on my mind for decades, but at that moment, it took little effort to tune into it with her....

Jan 17, 2014, 10:23:37 PM “I am going to apologize first, and ask you to let me finish before you continue. Or before you leave, if I offend you,” I pleaded, serious and sincere. She shrugged, then nodded slightly. “Good. First thing. What is the point of all of this?” I asked, since our conversations had barely...

Jan 18, 2014, 6:24:17 AM “A story is as good a way to organize your thoughts as anything else,” she pointed out, poised in the shadows in the doorway to my bedroom. Playing the part of my conscience, I concluded. That, or devil’s advocate. Either way, didn’t matter; she was me. I did this when thinking normally wasn’t...

Jan 19, 2014, 10:40:57 PM There had been an unintended consequence to confronting myself. On one level, because I took the message to heart, I no longer needed to lie to myself. I was who I was. I wasn’t normal by any stretch of the imagination, and I remained a living contradiction. I still faced the impossible on...

Jan 21, 2014, 12:12:17 AM “I would hold off on trying to answer that for a moment, to confront what you missed,” he told me when I picked up the thread the next day. That’s the funny difference between a written scene and reality. Even though I took a break–ate dinner, watched a movie and went to bed, then woke up...

Jan 22, 2014, 1:43:46 AM I had no idea how many people have lived, since the earliest days of humanity, but just for simplicity’s sake, say it was twice the number alive today. So, fourteen billion people have had a chance to work on the question she’d asked, and the answer was still up for grabs. I took the night to...

Jan 25, 2014, 9:41:05 PM I felt like I’d reached a climax of sorts, as I considered that observation. If I’d been able to dive directly into writing the last chapter–this chapter–I might have been able to capture the thought that would unlock the whole thing. Instead, reality chose that moment to change on me. I...

Jan 27, 2014, 2:27:40 PM Ending a story can be a tricky thing. What I was writing was both a prologue and epilogue for an unwritten story, so it was even trickier. There is no way to prove a story has its own reality. It does not challenge the reality we live in to say I could return to myself after escaping my daily...

April 4, 2003, 2:21 PM I am the dreamer and I am the dream Alone and my own and yet never seen I am within and I am without I am the one who coupled with doubt I am the slayer and I am the slain Taking my pleasure embracing the pain A passionate phoenix torn I am the artist and I am the art With patience and anguish I...