Connecting Through Dreams

 

copyright aplazar, 2015

Every night when I settle into my pillow, a strange thing happens. Just as I close my eyes and allow my brain to float...to drift...to slow down, dreams from the previous night flash before my mind's eye. Bits and pieces of vivid scenes flit and dissolve into sensations, movement, colors, buildings, and people. A sense of place evolves, and it is always the locale of the dream that I had the night before.

What's going on here? I rarely think of the dreams during the day, but when it happens, it's like a light clicks on in my head and I remember it, often in its entirety.

For example, on Monday night the most powerful dream of the evening involved me running around Salzburg. That's right, I took off for Austria in my pajamas and wandered cobblestone streets, passed high-spired churches, and drooled over delicacies in bakery windows. There was a sense of urgency that went with this dream, a searching for...something or someone. Maybe it was an apple strudel or Berliner (jelly donut). I can't remember that part. But the scenes, streets, buildings, all came back as soon as my head hit the pillow the next night. In seconds. Maybe milliseconds.

On Tuesday, I dreamed of my father. He passed eighteen years ago, and although you might think it odd, I consider these dreams "visits" with him. They are always pleasant, full of conversation, validation, and affection. In this dream, he was teaching me how to fillet a fish. Dad was a great fisherman. I guess in Heaven cleaning a fish isn't quite as gross as in real life. This fish had no stinky innards and its flesh was flakey and white, as if already grilled to perfection with lemon and plenty of butter.

On Wednesday, similar images returned before I moved on to new dreams. I saw Dad, the fish, and then swirled into a new adventure.

Is there a scratch pad memory in our brains that keeps an imprint there from the night before? The Dream RAM, or something? Maybe that's it.

Some of my best dreams—mostly the ones involving skiing on gorgeous fluffy snowy hills—come back often, months or years later. Now, see, it's extra cool because I don't downhill ski (I'm a wimp), but I do cross-country ski. Merged in these dreams are the thrilling sensations of sliding down a hill with the freedom of being upright on skis. With no fear, of course, and no falls. It's bliss.

Then there are the recurring dreams. Like the one where I can't find my locker in school, or my class schedule has disappeared and I panic.

How long has it been since I've wandered the academic hallways?

Decades.

The flying dream also recurs frequently. I cherish that one. Willing myself from my earthly bonds, I lift up, higher and higher, until with arms spread I soar across the skies. Sigh. It's the best one of all.

These connections, from night to night, as well as the connections with loved ones lost, are not dissimilar to another sensation that hits me daily.

When I'm writing a novel, I need to be in a certain zone, immersed fully in the story and in my character's mind before I can move on to the next chapter. Most of the time I write a chapter a day, and each time before I begin the next chapter I need to review the work from the day before to get into that “zone.” I ease into it, with anti-noise headphones doing their thing, relaxed in my comfy leather chair with my dogs sleeping on the rug nearby. It establishes the ground plane, and it's essential. The feeling is not unlike that dreamy quality of just-before-you-sleep drowsiness. There's a bit of a dreamlike quality to writing. After all, it's all happening through pictures in your head. Right?

Is it close to the subliminal? Do writers tap near their subconscious when they create? Is it like this for an artist or musician?

I wouldn't be surprised.

The layers of our lives are complex. Those deep-seated pockets of the subconscious, where fears from childhood fester, are not impossible to breach with focused therapy. The middle ground—the place where we dream—floats beneath consciousness and above fundamental memories, wafting like clouds waiting to descend. They're all connected.

The next time you lie down to dream, notice what happens. Can you connect the events to the night before? To a commercial you saw on TV? A dialog you read in a book? A fervent desire?

Think about it.

And remember, we're all connected. Whether through God, oxygen, atoms, the Internet, or something more ethereal and lovely, we're all connected.

Aaron Paul Lazar

www.lazarbooks.com

 

How Michael Prescott Developed His Bestselling Brand of Story Telling

By

 

Dora Machado

       

Michael Prescott is the Bestselling author of over twenty psychological thrillers and has sold over 1.5 million eBooks. Last week, Michael shared his writer’s journey with us in an interview where he discussed his amazing successes as a self-published author. This week, he talks about his writing philosophy, how he creates the serial killers that terrorize us, and how he developed his bestselling brand of storytelling.


Welcome back to MB4, Michael and thank you for taking the time to share with your fellow writers. Why did you choose to write suspense thrillers, and what are the basic elements that make your thrillers such an engaging read?


I've always liked suspense novels, but at first I really didn't know how to go about writing a police procedural because of all the technical information that's required. When I started reading Stephen King, I realized he'd probably grown up reading the same writers and watching the same movies I had, and his books didn't require much in the way of specialized knowledge. So I tried to emulate his approach, and my first efforts were horror novels. Eventually the market for horror books dried up, but the serial killer craze was just getting started, so I was able to make the transition to what my publisher called “psychological thrillers.”


Over time I developed an approach to the genre that works for me. I found I was best at writing a female protagonist and a male villain, compressing the story into a tight time frame – usually one or two days – and having at least two major plot twists, usually one in the middle and the other toward the end.


If you can tell a fast-paced story with interesting characters, some good twists, and a strong central conflict, you'll find an audience.


Who is Michael Prescott’s audience? How has it changed over the years? Do you envision a specific kind of reader when you write your novels?


I can’t say I envision any particular reader, but I have the sense that my female readers outnumber my male readers. That’s partly because I focus on female protagonists, but also because women read more than men do.


In a recent interview you mentioned that writing female serial killers was harder than writing a male villain. In fact, I think your exact, hilarious words were: “I’ve tried writing only one female serial killer. For me, it was harder than writing a male villain. I found I had an unfortunate tendency to make her kind of campy, like Cruella de Vil, only without the puppies.” Kellielarsenmurphy.com. What makes a good thriller villain? And of all your villains, which one is your most despicable favorite?


I think probably the best villain I wrote was John Cray in Stealing Faces, a psychiatrist who runs a mental hospital and actually ends up with the female protagonist of the story as his unwilling patient. Cray, whose name was inspired by the supercomputer company, has most of the elements I find interesting in a bad guy: he's well-educated, intellectual, coldhearted, psychopathic, and has a philosophy of life that can be explored in some depth.


Another, somewhat similar character is Peter Faust in Final Sins, a murderer who was able to get off with a very light sentence and has since become a twisted kind of celebrity. Naturally, he is still killing people in secret. Again, he's an intellectual sociopath with a personal philosophy. The character was inspired by a couple of books I'd read about Adolf Hitler. I like to have some kind of philosophical or thematic element to the book, and it usually comes out mainly through the villain and the exploration of his pathology.


Your villains may almost always be male characters, but your heroines are often females. Abby Sinclair, Tess McCallum, Bonnie Parker, Donna Wildman, they are only a few on the list. What’s the difference between a crafting a female protagonist and a female villain? And do you think that female characters will take over the suspense thriller world? 


I found by trial and error that I was just better at writing female protagonists. The male protagonists that I came up with tended to be a little flat, while the women were easier to bring to life. And the conflict between a female hero and a male villain can have a certain undercurrent of sexual tension that adds something to a story. I’ve never had much success with female villains, and I doubt I'll do another one. I find it easier to access my own dark side by going into a male character’s psychology.
I don't think female characters are going to take over, but there is certainly more of a market for them than there was twenty or thirty years ago. Back then, there was some novelty in just having a female cop or a female FBI agent or whatever, while these days there's no novelty to it at all, so you have to make the characters a little more over the top in order to keep them interesting. Because we’re so saturated with entertainment, it’s become necessary to make the stories bigger or more far-fetched in order to differentiate them from everything else that’s out there.


What comes next for Michael Prescott?


Back in 2013 I started a new series featuring a female private eye named Bonnie Parker, who moonlights as an assassin in cases where conventional methods don't go far enough. Bonnie, by the way, is named after the distaff half of Bonnie & Clyde. I’ve put out two books in the series so far, Cold Around the Heart and Blood in the Water. A third book is in the works now. I expect to publish it later this year. I'm not a very fast writer, and this book has endured a lot of delays, but it's coming together pretty well. I like the character and the series, and I hope to continue with it for a while longer.


Thanks again for talking to us, Michael. It’s been truly a pleasure. We wish you continued success in your journey.

*****

About Michael Prescott


After twenty years in traditional publishing, Michael Prescott found himself out of work in 2007, his career apparently over. On a whim, he began releasing his older titles and some new novels in eBook form. Much to his amazement, sales took off, and he became one of the bestselling eBook writers in the United States.


http://michaelprescott.net/
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelPrescott.author
michaelprescott2011@gmail.com
Twitter: @M_Prescott2011

*****

Dora Machado is the award-winning author of the epic fantasy Stonewiser series and her newest novel, The Curse Giver, available from Twilight Times Books. She grew up in the Dominican Republic, where she developed a fascination for writing and a taste for Merengue. After a lifetime of straddling such compelling but different worlds, fantasy is a natural fit to her stories.

When she is not writing fiction, Dora also writes features for Murder By Four, an award winning blog for readers and writers and Savvy Authors, where writers help writers. She lives in Florida with her indulgent husband and two very opinionated cats.

To learn more about Dora Machado and her award winning novels, visit her at www.doramachado.com , email her at Dora@doramachado.com, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

 

How Author Michael Prescott Became one of America’s Bestselling EBook Authors

By 

Dora Machado

Author Michael Prescott

Michael Prescott knows what he’s doing. He’s a popular thriller author who terrorizes us with nightmares about the serial killer next door. He has published over twenty suspense thrillers and sold over 1.5 million eBooks. According to USA today, his books have cracked the top 150 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books several times and his thrillers have logged over 42 weeks on USA TODAY's best-seller list. For an author who thought his career was dead in 2009, when twenty-five traditional publishers passed on his nineteenth thriller, Riptide, things have turned out rather well. The secret? A long backlist, a crisp, clear vision of modern story-telling, a daring move to self-publishing and perfect timing.




Welcome to MB4, Michael. It’s a pleasure to have you here. Let’s go straight to the heart of the matter. You are one of the bestselling eBook writers in the United States. How did you do it? And are there some specific elements that you can pinpoint as keys to your success? Why do you think you were able to thrive in the self-publishing industry?


It was largely a matter of luck. I started putting out my books just at the moment when eBook reading devices were taking off. I have a large backlist, and all the rights had reverted to me, so I was able to self-publish a lot of books very quickly. I priced them at 99 cents, so they sold fast.
These days the eBook market is much more competitive, and the 99-cent price point doesn't work so well anymore. If I were entering the eBook marketplace now, I wouldn't do nearly as well. I was in the fortunate circumstance of being in the right place at the right time.


Looking back, how has your work changed since you began to write in the 1980’s?


My horror novels depended largely on shock value - blood and gore. I don’t go in for that so much these days, although my most recent book, Blood in the Water, does have its unpleasant moments, mainly involving a toothsome rat named Virgil.


Some of my early books were overwritten; they got bogged down in long descriptive passages. I made significant cuts before reissuing them; in the most extreme case, I trimmed 25,000 words from Shadow Dance. Streamlining description is a general trend in fiction writing these days. Books are getting to be more like screenplays. People are more sophisticated about storytelling and don’t require so much hand-holding from the author.


With twenty-some novels under your belt, what is your favorite part of the publishing process? What is your least favorite part? What do you think is the most daunting challenge to writers pursuing publication in today's environment?


My least favorite part of the writing process is coming up with the idea and developing it into a capsule storyline. That can be frustrating, and it takes me longer than I’d like. My favorite part is editing a scene, putting it through various revisions until it works for me.


With regard to publishing, as opposed to writing, I always hated having to wait for the book to come out after I'd finished it. Sometimes it would take a year or more, and the book would be a lot less fresh by the time it hit the stores. Of course, self-publishing eliminates this problem.


The most daunting challenge for writers today is to stand out from the crowd. The upside of self-publishing is that you're not dependent on the tender mercies of agents and editors. The downside is that the marketplace is flooded with books, and it's difficult for a newcomer to attract attention. It can be done, but often it requires a certain degree of savvy about social media and self-promotion. People who use Twitter, Facebook, blogs, promotional giveaways, bulk email messages, and other tricks of the trade will have more success. The book Let's Get Visible by David Gaughran offers a lot of ideas about raising your book's profile.


Thanks for the recommendation. What have been the most significant moments of your career so far? What are the main challenges you’ve faced in your writer’s life? What are some of the sweetest rewards?


Probably the most significant moment was when I heard that my first book, Manstopper, had been accepted for publication. For the first time I felt like a real writer. Prior to that, I’d sold a few magazine articles and had done some work as a screenwriter for low-budget producers, but selling my first novel made me feel like I had a real career ahead of me.


The biggest challenge has been to persist in the face of professional ups and downs. I've had to change my identity more than once in order to re-launch myself. It can get discouraging when you're on the verge of breaking out and then the sales figures fizzle and you have to start all over again. You feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain, only to have it roll back down. But the reward, besides the obvious one of producing a body of work that you can be proud of, is the ability to work at home, set your own hours, and make a living by doing something that you would probably do as a hobby.


Is there a new novel in the wings? What’s next for Michael Prescott?


Back in 2013 I started a new series featuring a female private eye named Bonnie Parker, who moonlights as an assassin in cases where conventional methods don't go far enough. Bonnie, by the way, is named after the distaff half of Bonnie & Clyde. I’ve put out two books in the series so far, Cold Around the Heart and Blood in the Water. A third book is in the works now. I expect to publish it later this year. I'm not a very fast writer, and this book has endured a lot of delays, but it's coming together pretty well. I like the character and the series, and I hope to continue with it for a while longer.


Thank you so much for sharing your writer's journey with us!  And to our MB4 readers, there's more of Michael Prescott next week, when he will discuss his bestselling take on crisp, fast-paced, modern storytelling.  

*****

About Michael Prescott


After twenty years in traditional publishing, Michael Prescott found himself out of work in 2007, his career apparently over. On a whim, he began releasing his older titles and some new novels in eBook form. Much to his amazement, sales took off, and he became one of the bestselling eBook writers in the United States.


http://michaelprescott.net/
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelPrescott.author
michaelprescott2011@gmail.com .
Twitter: @M_Prescott2011.

Amazon link: http://goo.gl/o0vug2

*****

Dora Machado is the award-winning author of the epic fantasy Stonewiser series and her newest novel, The Curse Giver, available from Twilight Times Books. She grew up in the Dominican Republic, where she developed a fascination for writing and a taste for Merengue. After a lifetime of straddling such compelling but different worlds, fantasy is a natural fit to her stories.

When she is not writing fiction, Dora also writes features for Murder By Four, an award winning blog for readers and writers and Savvy Authors, where writers help writers. She lives in Florida with her indulgent husband and two very opinionated cats.

To learn more about Dora Machado and her award winning novels, visit her at www.doramachado.com , email her at Dora@doramachado.com, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

 The Curse Giver's Amazon's Link: http://amzn.to/1szECCn