Okay so we all have nightmares. But lately mine have been in all of the Technicolor glory possible – complete with very fine detailed observations. Usually I have dreams and the characters are some how incomplete in their appearance ... not like they have missing parts in an alarming way. It's just that some fine detail is not necessary so therefore it does not exist in finite, defined ways ... like the delicate curve of one's fingers or the distinguishing feature like a tongue piercing. I'd say many of my dreams are in color but then ...

Well the last few nights the dreams are boosted to new levels – like watching a movie. I see details about the facial features. There are plot twists that would be fitting of finely crafted novels. There is thought out "if then" considerations on the part of my character. Yes I am both one of the characters and the watcher of the scene.

Tonight (written at 2am Monday a.m.) the dream actually started as a movie ... a movie which I had to start over because my foot was in the way when it came to some fine detail of the drama ... a pivotal twist in the drama ... right when everything went all murderous and sherlock Holmes ... yes the dream had all the flavoring of a Sherlock Holmes story and movie. As usual, Mr. Holmes became involved early on. (Yes, I rewound my dream!)

I would like to think that the bizarre nature of the dream was somehow connected to an actual plot that I read somewhere or saw in a movie ... the other night, yes, I could easily lay the plot out as a standard plot of some military type movie.

Tonight's plot ... there is no such easy dismissal. Tonight I am faced with the reality that I can create horrendously psychologically deranged characters. I can move them through a plot. ... a chilling plot ... a plot so complex that even Mr. Holmes was unwilling to believe the worst of the villain.

But, of course, I woke up right at the point where I, the heroin, could change the whole story. I have no clue if I was able to convince Mr. Holmes of the danger we were in as I was separated from the evidence I had collected. In fact, the separation left me so vulnerable that I was quite certain the villain was busy discovering that very damning evidence about him had been lifted from his work area and the only possible person who could have removed it was me. And, of course, next he would go to my guest room (as, of course, we were staying over at the villain's place for the night) and wait for me to return. And while waiting he would rediscover each and every item I had lifted.

Yes, that is a very standard drama plot... but the things I had discovered about the villain while pilfering his work space were not standard at all. They were psychologically deranged facts and artifacts ... and they were deviously hidden from the world.

Part of me is very disturbed to find this sort of thing inside me. Still, in separate pieces and in separate instances everything it took to create the plot has been presented to me in various books, movies, research, life observations, etc.

So I am left with the fact that I am very able to create fiction from bits and pieces. Not only am I able to create the plot, I am able to define the characters and describe them. This is a huge relief to me as NaNoWriMo approaches and I long to write a story that congeals 100's of people whom I've met into just 30 short scenarios.

I've been wondering if I can do it. I guess the answer is yes.

I think perhaps the villain was so wondrously psychologically imbalanced with the ability to appear ... cutting edge eccentric brilliant ... is because I've been musing over the 100's of people ... and I find it ironic that some of the most fascinating moments in my life-observations have been provided by people who ... can only be described as ... brain damaged and involved in a huge community game of "let's pretend" ... but in a cocooning kind of way. You'll see ... you'll understand later.

Are you NaNoWriMo-ing?

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