This Writing Life: Writing From Dreams

It’s fair to say that a lot of my writing attention has gone into a single world recently, namely the city of Ardom Wave which features so heavily in my first Ark & Fable novella (and in the sequel). Whilst considering writing a post about the creation of that setting, I started thinking about where the seeds for that particular idea grew from. When I remembered, I had to laugh: Ardom Wave came to me, quite literally, in a dream.

Now, I don’t usually pay much attention to dreams. Sometimes it’s fairly obvious what your brain is trying to tell you, and at other times it’s not worth trying to decipher the gibberish. Add to that the fact I rarely remember my dreams anyway, and you’ll realise I’m not about to suggest you start keeping a dream diary and mining it for every story you commit to the page. However, just occasionally, my sleeping mind provides me with something quite different, something I can quite clearly identify as a story, and something I might have come up with whilst awake.

These very rare dreams are, I find, like watching a film, start to finish. If I could write them down, I think they’d have a fairly coherent plot and be put together in the same way I’d usually plot a novel (I’m very visual when it comes to imagining scenes anyway, and I can usually describe the setting as though it were a film set). Of course, remembering that plot once awake is the tricky part, but I still tend to recall enough to build a story around what remains.

A couple of specific instances come to mind, here. One very much falls into that dreaming-an-entire-story category, and though I could only remember the last ‘scene’ once I woke, it left an incredibly striking image that I’ve been trying to work into a novel ever since. (In this particular instance, just that final scene provides both the entire setting and much of the plot leading up to it, and although I’ve written a nearly full draft of the story, it somehow didn’t work out as satisfactorily as I would have liked.)

And then we come to Ardom Wave. This time, there was no story, just a very clear image of a valley filled with pillars, attached to that name. I spent a good week convinced it was a setting I’d lifted from elsewhere, name and all, but Google revealed nothing and I came to the conclusion that the setting was one I’d imagined myself. Whilst the Ardom in the dream was an entirely natural landscape, turning it into a city for the Ark & Fable series seemed to come naturally, and has provided the perfect location to build those stories around.

As I said before, developing stories from dreams can be a haphazard business, and I certainly wouldn’t trust them to provide more than an occasional flash of inspiration. However, even that can be just what you need to spark an entire plot, character or world, so when your unconscious mind provides you with a helping hand, sometimes it’s wise to listen!

‘Star of the Everlasting’ Now Available

Late last week, I blogged about my forthcoming fantasy novella, ‘Star of the Everlasting’, the first in the Ark & Fable series. I’m pleased to say the novella is now available for purchase! Hurrah! For anyone who missed it, here’s the blurb:

In the cliff-top city of Ardom Wave, there are the nobles, the criminals – and those in between.

As middlemen ‒ or middlewomen, in their case ‒ Ark and her partner Fable tread the fine line between those in power and those most definitely not, all while keeping their heads down, staying ahead of the law, and always turning a profit.

Their ‘fine line’ is under threat, though, and Ark’s about to break her three cardinal rules. The first: never let a job turn personal, even when a face from your past comes calling. Lady Vesper might tug at Ark’s heart-strings, but as a noblewoman with a string of dead husbands, she’s a dangerous woman to get close to.

Except Vesper claims to have changed her ways and wants to escape the city ‒ an escape Ark would be willing to provide, if it wasn’t for rule number two: stay well away from magic.

Because Vesper is up to her elbows in the artifact trade, and if Ark is going to dig her out, she’ll have to break the most important rule of all, the one separating the middlemen from everyone else. She’s going to have to get her hands dirty.

To see the cover, and a few more details of the story, have a look at my previous post on the subject here. And, more importantly, to find the book on Amazon, go HERE.

It’s exciting to have another story out there in the world, particularly one that I hope will be the first in a series. I’m also experimenting with Amazon’s KDP Select program, in an attempt to give the novella an initial boost. There is of course a caveat there: the novella will only be available for the Kindle, at least for now, but if you’re not a Kindle owner, don’t despair! As with ‘Sanguine’, I’m happy to send out review copies in your choice of format – just leave a comment on this post, or send me an email (details on my About page).

It’s fair to say I love this series: I love the city (although I wouldn’t want to live there!), I love how much fun I had writing it, and I especially love the two central characters. If you fancy reading about ancient magic, crime capers and gun-fights, all with a twisty, twisty plot, I hope you’ll love them too.

‘Star of the Everlasting’ Cover Reveal!

It’s only been a couple of months since my self-publishing début, but I’m never one to let the grass grow under my feet (unless it comes to actually mowing the lawn, at which I’m very lazy…). ‘Star of the Everlasting’ started life as a short story back in December of 2012. However, I have a real problem writing short stories, in that I continually try to cram too much plot in. By the time this particular story was at 12k words, I had to admit it really wasn’t going to be ‘short’ at all, and that to make it work, it needed a bit more room to breathe.

And the result is here! That unnamed short story became ‘Star of the Everlasting’, the first novella in my Ark & Fable series. It’s got gun fights and ancient magic and a city built on colossal stone pillars. It’s also got Ark and Fable themselves, the titular characters, a pair of ‘middlemen’ who negotiate between criminals and the city’s highest echelons, always in the name of profit. Well, perhaps not always, as you’ll discover if you read the novella…

So, on to the cover!

I think my partner has excelled himself this time, and I absolutely adore this cover. It’s dark and moody, and really sets the tone for the setting as a whole. It also shows a key scene from the story… and that’s as much as I’m going to say about that! However, you might have noticed the little logo in the middle of the cover, which – close up – looks something like this:

This was my partner’s idea, much as I’d like to take credit for it, and a version will appear on each novella in the series, tying the covers together.

Finally, it’s time for the blurb (not necessarily the final blurb that’ll make its way into the ebook, but it’s close enough):

In the cliff-top city of Ardom Wave, there are the nobles, the criminals – and those in between. As middlemen – or middlewomen, in their case – Ark and her partner Fable tread the fine line between those in power and those most definitely not, all while keeping their heads down, staying one step ahead of the law, and always turning a profit.

A fine line that comes under threat when they’re faced with conflicting requests from two equally wealthy clients, either one of whom could cause serious trouble if they don’t get their way.

The way out requires breaking Ark’s three cardinal rules. The first: never let a job turn personal, even when a face from your past comes knocking. Vesper might tug at Ark’s heart-strings, but as a noblewoman with a string of dead husbands, she’s a dangerous woman to get close to.

Except Vesper has changed her ways and is looking for a way out of the city – a way Ark wouldn’t mind providing, if it wasn’t for rule number two: never get involved in magic.

Because Vesper is up to her elbows in the artefact trade, and if Ark is going to dig her way out, she’s going to have to break the most important rule of all, the one that separates the middlemen from everyone else. She’s going to have to get her hands dirty.

You might have guessed that ‘Star of the Everlasting’ is rather different from my last self-published book. Whilst ‘Sanguine’ was a YA novel, this is firmly in adult territory (although, in all honesty, I don’t write huge amounts of sex, graphic violence or swearing in anything), set in a very different world. It’s also the first in a series, and I’m going to be trying a few different things when it comes to publication. For the first few months, at least, it’s going to be an Amazon exclusive, so I can gauge if that makes any difference to initial sales (I’ll say more about this when I do a more general self-publishing post). I’ll also be trying to get the next couple of novellas out as quickly as possible, with a novel-length omnibus to come later.

So, there you have it: ‘Star of the Everlasting’, coming soon to Amazon, and setting in motion events for a whole string of stories. I’ll have more release details soon, but for now, enjoy the cover, and let me know what you think!