The Practical Free Spirit

More publishing news! It’s been a busy summer. This time my contemporary fantasy story “The Dreamtime” appears online at Buzzy Magazine.

“The Dreamtime” is one of my older stories. I wrote it in the spring of 2010, and it was the story I submitted to Taos Toolbox for the first week critiques. Yes, I got fifteen critiques on this story during that first week at Taos, and almost everyone agreed on one thing: a crucial scene was missing. Yes, missing.

If anyone was looking for a testimonial on the effectiveness of Taos Toolbox as a workshop, I think I can honestly say I would never have sold this story without the revisions I did as a result of attending. I actually ended up adding two major scenes and one very short interlude, as well as deleting (well, combining with another, really) a scene. And the story is much better for all these changes.

Photo by Paul Bica

This story is also an illustration of the important role of persistence in being a writer. I finished the above revisions later that same summer, and as you see, the story is appearing two years later. It was purchased almost a year and a half after I started sending it out to markets. In fact, I was almost ready to give up and put it away for good, but I hated to do that since I still felt I could stand by it as a story. And then along came the new market Buzzy Magazine, paying pro rates and having an editorial focus that made me think “The Dreamtime” might be a good fit. I guess the editors agreed!

As for the story seed, I started out by thinking of the dreamtime as a metaphor for those moments when you begin thinking about someone in your past who you would really rather not think about. And yet there they are, waving at you from your own thoughts. But what if these people could do something similar of their own volition? A psychic phone call, if you will? From this idea was born the character of Mariah, still hung up on a crazy ex-love with the power to roam her dreams. In this way, this story is a twisted kind of love story that shows the emotional aftermath of a relationship gone wrong.

Some of my Taos classmates had trouble believing that a woman would find a man like O’Malley to be attractive since he is arrogant, dismissive, bullying, expects her to do what he wants. I have to respectfully disagree. Of course relationships like this exist in the real world. And even though these relationships are dysfunctional, that doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult for the parties involved to disentangle themselves. Love doesn’t disappear so easily. The question in my mind isn’t whether such relationships exist but rather whether the individuals involved (in this case, Mariah) can develop the personal strength to move on.

I hope you enjoy!