Inner Monologue

Robbie took me out and we got salads and went stargazing, then did a little cleaning and snuggled up to watch movies until dawn. It was nice to take a break from everything with him. I love how snuggly he is.

I posted a hiatus on dA today, I don't know if I'm going to be doing a lot of writing in the next few weeks, but I'm def not going to be putting any of it up. Right now, my writing has become one of the most stressful things in my life, and its because it isn't going anywhere. My biggest dream ever since I was little was to be published, but now that I'm so close, I just keep getting pushed back.

I hate thinking about the lack of progress that has been made, it makes me feel sick. So I'm taking a break from all of it for a couple weeks. Going to be concentrating on spending more time with Robbie. Probably not going to be on the lappy so much, but I'll try to make more entries on my journal. I seem to be slipping on that aspect, and it does help me get my thoughts out. So I need that bit.

I had a really disturbing dream that I went to a passover celebration and the lady said that I had to fast before the dinner so i could get the full effect, then Samm came over and pulled me up into what was I guess my room, then started breaking the heels off of all of my shoes and saying that they wouldn't be good for dancing? I was all sorts of wtf, my shoes! Then I woke up and they were all pretty in the closet.

Maybe I need more shoes.

And I was eating, I forgot what it was like to get hungry. The days blended together for a while there with work, I was only really eating twice a day. I had four days off and I was eating like crazy...like I used to apparently.

Appointment with the surgeon for Robbie today, we'll see how that goes.

Bastian progress is going, slowly but surely. I don't know if we'll make the deadline for the penguin books competition, and I didn't even plan on saying anything about it here, but what the hell. I haven't really said anything about it to anyone. I just don't usually enter writing contests.... I don't even really know when they're going on. I guess I should try for that more this year.

So back to the whole time off from work bit, I only work one day next week. The paycheck will be suffering, but I'm determined to throw myself into my writing. Its all I have left really. I guess I've got nothing left to lose, all of my practical plans fell through, all I have left are the dreams. I want to take a trip to clear my head, get to a city. Not c-bus, somewhere new where I could just wander and clear my head looking at new things.

Speaking of dreams. I had one around Christmas. No Morpheus. I was wrapped up in turquoise ribbon on the beach gasping for air. I pulled myself out of bed and grabbed my lappy quick to write down the words and descriptions, and to be quite honest that is what I have down for one of my future projects. The whole mermaid returning to the sea. It's going to hit close to home, its going to be a recount of the dreams with him where we were transporting the mermaid.

I was thinking about the dreams, and looking back, and I think...I think Morpheus might have been an angel and I think he was trying to tell me something, or warn me. Or maybe I've cracked at last. So when I had the dream about the ribbon I was pretty freaked out. It was the first dream in a long while, and if it is in the least bit prophetic like the last...I'm in trouble.

I talked to Kyle yesterday, we ended up patching things up slightly. I doubt there will be any more trouble between us. Not for the usual reasons, but because I don't think I'll ever see him to be honest. There will be no opportunity.

I feel overwhelmed for some reason, depressed, but when I take a moment to myself I can't seem to get the thoughts straight.

Might as well use it.

None with Morpheus, but even having a dream at this point is comforting. I fell asleep around 3 or 4 and the dream was enough to wake me up.

I was at a rummage sale of some sort in an old house, there are tables around the edges of each of the rooms and they are covered in clothes that I'm supposed to be looking through. Snowflake, a cat we had when I was growing up is there with me. Suddenly I look at my phone and I have an FB message that a teenager in Texas, a boy named Alice (yeah) committed suicide. Well I immediately panic and call his girlfriend, but I can't get through.

So I woke up and gave my friend Shelby a text, she has a girlfriend named Alice. Apparently my dreams can't comprehend relationships outside of the boy+girl, so when faced with a girl+girl it overloaded. Alice is fine, but I'm still slightly worried, especially after the dream I had before the break-in with Morpheus.

So I went back to sleep.

We're playing some sort of treasure hunting game. We're looking for three rings. The first has two stones, one red and the other yellow; the next has two stones, one blue and the other green; and the third is just a white stone. So I'm not really taking part in the hunt, but I still manage to find the blue and green one inside a clock during a party. So I put the ring on and I can immediatly control water and talk to animals, which for the location is actually pretty handy. I and a bunch of random people were in a jungle-type setting with a large bungalo in the middle. So I am able to talk to animals and scale through the minecrafty-jungle with the help of the animals.

Sooner or later I piss someone off. Or at least I thought I had at the time. There's suddenly a bounty on my head and a couple other people who are exploring with me are in trouble as well. The thing is tho, the bounty was on my head before people realized that the ring in the clock was missing, so it had nothing to do with that. We escape to a run down leaky tin cottage, and in the corner are these rags covered in water or some weird watery substance, and anything covered by them becomes invisible! Well thats well and good except for the fact that I need at least two to cover me. The other two that were with me are caught, and i immediatly cover myself with the rags and crawl under the stairs to hide.

If doesn't work for long and I am found out by my foot. The person hunting me pulls me up to sit on the stairs and I just start crying like I'm going to die, I actually already knew I wasn't going to, but that didn't stop me from giving him the ring and asking him to make sure that the others who were looking for it never found it.

I don't really know what to make of them, of course I never did in the first place. I wonder if they'll become interactive and reoccuring again.

I've set out the sequel ideas for Ritzko, and I think I actually like where it's going.

1st Installment -- The Final Commission of Bastian Freeman -- written

Bastian takes on a job that may be too much for him to handle and ends up in deeper trouble than he realizes, from the POV of Bastian Freeman.

2nd Installment -- From the Desk of Detective David Johnson -- in progress

The events from Bastian's initial disappearance to when Jenna is adopted, from the POV of David Johnson.

3rd Installment -- Gale DeWinter's Army -- planned

After Jenna's adoption, Gale and Ritz easily keep their involvement in Bastian's disappearance from Jenna, but the rest of the clan is cryptic, Gale begins to doubt Ritz, from the POV of Gale DeWinter.

(totally can't wait to write all the flapper goodness Paris flashbacks)

4th Installment -- Unmasking Ritz --planned

7 years after Bastian's disappearance, Jenna inherits everything her brother has left her and begins an investigation of her own, from the POV of Jenna Freeman

Here's the challenge for myself: the first book runs 50~51k words and just under 200 pages, I am going to limit myself and make an attempt to make each book as uniform in size as possible, while keeping the same writing style for each of them. All will be written like you're inside the narrator's head, and all of them will have unique personalities. I'm excited for the project, and slightly leery of the challenge, but, hey, I wrote the original in 10 days, should be a snap, right?

I dream when I write.

I don't really know how to begin, so I'm just going to dive into it.

Everything has happened so fast, I just don't know how to react. Almost like I would rather go numb and let everything happen. everything just happens.

the funeral was lovely really. she was the first corpse I  saw that didn't look plastic. although i suppose its wrong of me to call her that. she found her blue outfit I suppose. the one i remember her looking for. with the small pink polka dots. the adema had gotten bad, she was rather puffy still.

on the way back from the funeral I agitated things, i told robbie i just couldn't move out of the city. i felt awful for saying it immediatly. with as many things that happened that day he really didn't need me to be wishy washy about the move.

i feel helpless.

we set things straight i suppose, the move is so far planned for july 27, but i have no problem in telling my job to bugger off before then if need be.

but the icing on the cake (or rather the cherry on top, as rob's grandmother's death was the icing), is that when we returned home there was no water. Not because the bill hadn't been paid, but because while we were gone someone broke into the other side of the double, turned off the water, and stole the copper piping.

my house isn't livable. and now i'm a nomad with my bag and my laptop, and a cat on a harness and leash that is living at my parent's house for the time being. that is until the dogs get to her like they tried to earlier.

and now i feel like i'm about to cry, but i just can't get to it. like too many things have happened and i really do just want to let go and curl into a ball and let robbie take care of me like he wanted to. but up north i'll be useless, with no job to help support us, and i still don't feel up to writing, what good am i?

i suppose it got around at work what happened. of course that is my fault, no one elses. I sat at the table and outright said that after the week i had, rob's grandmother's death was hopefully the end, and when they asked about the rest of the week i flat out told them. and they asked, and wondered, why hadn't i said anything before?

i saw a FB message when i logged on earlier today from someone wishing me well. that's all well and good, but i didn't tell anyone at work (save Cammy and Margo) what was going on when it was going on because I don't trust them. i spent the past year and a half putting myself out there and trying to make friends and became outright ostracized from everyone.

i tell myself constantly that i need to be more outgoing, that i need to pull myself out of my shell, but then i look back at all i've done and it frustrates me that I HAVE, I certainly have. But i just don't understand why. but i'm slightly glad all the same. i owe them nothing, no explanation, no thanks, no regrets. just pack up what little i have left and let robbie carry me away.

alright, i think i feel up to crying now.

The house was robbed and they took my computer and flash drive.

I came home ALONE to everything gone and turned up-side-down. I have the first 50 chapters on my e-mail, but unless by some miracle we find they tossed a drive somewhere...I will either give up on Artemis or start the last 25 chapters from scratch. I don't even know right now.

To top it off one of the cats got out, she's still missing, and she's afraid of everything.

I'm at my parent's right now, they're away on a family vacation, and when I called them to ask them for help, I was met with no support at all. After talking with Robbie we decided that the best thing to do would be to save up enough to get us back to Michigan with his family. They immediately offered us a place to stay while we got back to our feet. Robbie is working on getting his job transferred, I would be starting from scratch with my school loans to pay...of course he keeps telling me that he'll support me for as long as he has to, even if I never go back to work.

All the sweet things make me cry even more.

At least I get internet on my phone, so my email is raintree.willow@gmail.com, my phone number is 614-580-4551. Text, call, email. It makes me even sadder that most of the people that I've been there for here aren't there for me. I'm lucky to have friends who live far away that I email, who listen to me, but I don't think I'll ever stop crying.

I feel like I'm living that moment of coming home over and over again.

Don't comment on here, I won't be checking my LJ for a LONG while.

Morpheus and I are outside a friend's house. Not a close friend, well not close anymore, I'm closer to her father than anyone else anymore. But we're outside the house and across the street looking at it and it looks old and torn apart.

Morpheus tells me that it's had a series of break-ins over the past week, literally one every five to ten minutes (you'd think there would be nothing left to steal). So with this in mind, guess where we go?

The door is open when we go to it, and the family is there, but they haven't been staying there for very long periods of time at once. One of the sons says that they've been staying at his apartment. I don't even know where my friend is at this point, or her mother, all I see is the two boys, the father, and Morpheus beside me.

The father is sitting in the corner, looking broken, and staring into a small computer mouse in his hands.

I was going to go over to him to comfort him, but Morpheus holds my arm tight and keeps me back, "He's lost everything, he'll quickly snap."

And sure enough he does, and when he snaps I can no longer find the boys, it's just me and Morpheus in the room with a man that looks almost rabid.

I swear, I didn't touch my copy of Inferno before I went to bed. I've been immersed in Lolita for the past few days.

...I've been working my way into a depression. I can't seem to shake it no matter how many times Cee Lo Green says Fuck You.

Normally I don't pay it any attention when I get these bouts, but when I actually sit and think about it, its always there.

Samm says, "Finish Artemis." Kyle says, "Finish Artemis." Now I have Kat saying, "Finish Artemis."

It used to be that I thought Morpheus would stop the visits if I finished, but that isn't the case at all it seems.

I'm nearing the final chapter of Book 1, and I have all of Book 2 to write before the story is over for  the reader (Book 3 will never be seen by the public), and while I have a ways to go I'm feeling almost broken.

I have a problem.

I feel like if I do finish Artemis I will be useless, no other story really entrances me.

And these thoughts take me to very dark places.

I need to take a walk.

I have an appointment with Brenda Frazier this Wednesday, she was referred to me by someone at work, and although I know that interpreting dreams may not be her specialty, I feel like even if she can give me some sort of insight to the spirit world I'll feel a little less terrified of my dreams. Then there's also the worry that half an hour may not be enough, in which case I might actually make a second appointment if I'm satisfied with how she manages things.

Either way I know that I'm long overdue for seeing someone about these dreams, I shouldn't have waited for them to get so frequent. I'm just glad that the more creepy ones have died down, the whole ordeal with the Tiffany's and the swimming dream were a little too much for me.

I'm more worried that I'm drifting back into old habits and ways of thinking and I can't justify not. I guess some things are too private for even a journal that no one reads.

Another worrying revelation: she'll probably be able to sense my growing despondence.

Dream 1:

I was part of an impoverished family, more children than would fit in this little house and yet I only saw one of them, just a toddler bumbling around without supervision, but apparently that was okay? I wasn't interested in him, or any of the family actually, I was more interested on this kit I had received. A kit to grow a tree.

So I plant the tree in the little pot that came with the kit and set the timer for 4 hours (because apparently this tree could grow to full size in 4 hours), so I went off to wander around in that time (I really wish I hadn't I kind of wanted to see it grow), and when I got back it was a fucking full-sized Christmas tree with little red poinsettia lights, each with a strange fruit on them, ripe and ready to be plucked. So I took one, but before I could eat it everyone was called into the front yard.

My dream family got fucking evicted. Really? How lame. So we go on this journey down a dirt road surrounded by cornfields to search for a new home. (So now I'm a hobo)

We get to the city, but the city is a building, one big circular building reaching up a hundred stories, however it's been sliced down the middle and half of it is shrouded in black curtains, just like in one of my earlier dreams.

We split up, need to meet back in a few hours, but for now I'm allowed to go off on my own. I know where I want to go, and I dart to the shrouded area.

It's a jungle. There is literally a jungle behind the curtain and almost immediately where I'm standing there's a mine cart on a track going upwards. Without a hesitating thought (maybe only a memory of going up the ladders in my earlier dreams) I jump into the car and begin my ascent, starting slow then going faster, pummeling through bramble and small pygmy towns, and before I know it CAPTAIN HOOK HAS JUST FUCKING JUMPED INTO THE CART WITH ME.

"Where we going?"

"Crazy I think."

"Sounds fun."

I swear we sped up, and I reach up to the front edge of the cart and hold onto it, Captain Hook is now bracing his hands on the sides, "Where's the break?"

"I think I lost it somewhere." I never actually had one.

"Of course."

We keep flying along the cart tracks and we take out all sorts of creature, nothing can withstand our roadkill powers, we even took out a herd of alligators. Then the track is on a river and we're about to be thrown over the waterfall, but the instant we go over the edge I'm back in the City building, flying--no plummeting--down the center and we crash into the other side.

So Captain Hook and I brush ourselves off and we have a formal introduction and that's when I notice it. Every single citizen of the city is an actor or actress. I saw Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, it just went on and on.

So Captain Hook is hungry, so we go to the food court type area thingy, and everyone is buying sandwiches. Ridiculously expensive sandwiches that really are only mayo and lettuce on wonderbread. So Captain Hook gets one but all I really want is water, so we settle into a little table, and Captain Hook starts making comments about random people who are passing. So the cast of Harry Potter is there, but the only one we're really watching is Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) who WILL NOT STOP picking his nose.

A kid comes over to our table and SPITS IN MY WATER. I'm completely appalled and pull my foot back when the kid goes to spit on my shoe. Then this whole ordeal becomes some messed-up chase around the table where he's trying to spit on me? I'm more terrified of this person than I understand and I slip. I'm bent over backwards on the table, Captain Hook has stood up and His appearance begins to change, just like it had in dreams before. The kid is holding me down onto the table, not going to spit, but just looking menacing.

He socks him. Square in the jaw. He's come back and He takes my hand and pulls me up, asking if I'm alright. My clothes have changed, I'm wearing some long sea-foam green coat-ish-duster-thing and I glance back at Rupert Grint and Emma Watson before, He pulls me out of that place by the hand and for some reason He looks desperate and worried.

Dream 2:

I've been watching waaay too many cartoons or something: I'm walking down the sidewalk of a cartoon setting, my purse in the crook of my arm and my phone open in my hands. I'm texting someone and I'm mad as hell. I have no idea what I'm so angry about , He's texting me back with nothing but apologies, but I have no idea what He's apologizing for.

[Chapter 50: Absolution was written after this, and all the old dialogue was opened up, I think that may have something to do with this.]

Dream 3:

I'm going on a date, very black and white, and I'm searching for my little black dress, but all I can find are these really tacky jeans. He's waiting downstairs, Samm is trying to keep Him occupied with conversation but I can feel His eyes drifting to the ceiling. After about 20 minutes of shuffling through clothes, I eventually say "Fuck it" and grab my skinny jeans and a t-shirt.

I jump down the stairs and walk out the door with Him and get into His car, we're driving along, I don't remember what we were talking about but I changed the topic:

"When I'm dead, will I be stuck in this place?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I die, what will happen?"

"It's oblivion, you don't want that."

"Then what is this?"

"A fashion nightmare."

"At least my jeans aren't made from a carpet."

He just started laughing, really hard, and I can't help but laugh too.


On the same note: I never got the call back from when I made the appointment, I can't say I blame her, I know that it's one of those things where you're allowed to be more selective on your clients. So I'm back to hunting for someone who can help me weed through all of these dreams and find out who this person is and more importantly, why they've been in all my dreams for the past two years.