Bad Dream

The last real nightmare I remember having was when I was about three years old. My grandfather had a huge old car that to me seemed like it was as big as our house. Well, I used to have this dream that his car would eat me. Swallow me down into the hood and then, well, I woke up. Since then I've never had a wake-up-in-terror nightmare.

This morning, between the time my roommate got up to get ready and the time my alarm went off, I had a dream. It wasn't a nightmare, but it was pretty horrible.

I found myself in the hall of a High School. Yes, terrifying in and of itself. I had an armful of books and I think I was on my way to class. Some friend of mine materialized out of thin air and introduced me to another woman, who also randomly appeared. My friend said that this was the agent I was supposed to pitch my book to.

First off, I was unprepared. I don't have an “elevator pitch” yet, and my query still needs work. So I humed and hawed for a second before starting to tell this agent about my story. If I remember right, I got less than a sentence out before she interrupted me. And the sentence went something like this: “A girl, Lysandra Blake, finds herself addicted to a need for . . .”

The woman cut me off! She said, “Lysandra Blake? No one cares about Lysandra Blake! Who is she?” Pause. “She's boring! She's you and me! You need a character, not some pansy . . .”

I woke up.

It was horrible. I almost thought about putting my novel away for a year and forgetting about writing. Lucky for me I'm at an easy to write spot in my story, so the work goes on . . .

Mean lady, if I meet her in real life we're going to have to have a nice chat. Perhaps an aggressive “chat”. Ninja girl can come along!