February 2022 Newsletter: a troubled dream

What Troubled Dream Is This?

Usually I don’t recall my dreams, but I did remember the one I was into just before I woke up Friday morning.

I dreamed that Jess and were at the premiere of a Stephen Amell movie, and Amell himself of Arrow fame was there. He wore a pair of chinos and a tight short-sleeved shirt with a collar. His casual ensemble showed off his wonderful physique that this octogenarian has no business drooling over, but does anyway. The gorgeous guy, surrounded by a bunch of groupie dudes similarly attired, even smiled at us and beckoned to us to come along.

But we got hung up at the concession stand where some middle-aged man who needed a shave waited on us. He gave us a fight about what he should cook for us on a grill as time slipped past. This is taking too long, I thought. Finally in disgust, I dug in my purse for my wallet and then in my wallet for some money to pay him for his trouble. “This is taking too long,” I said. I only came up with a twenty — way too much —and a one — way too little — tightly folded together. The guy at the concession stand was just offering us some sort of fried bun when I woke up.

Now, at our house, we follow my daddy’s old Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that one doesn’t tell what she dreamed before breakfast, so by the time I finished my juice, bacon, toast with cream cheese and delicious raspberry and pomegranate fruit spread and described my dream to Jess, I’d figured out what it was trying to tell me.

Dreams often are absurd. For example, Jess and I don’t go to the concession stands anymore or movies during the pandemic for that matter. I don’t keep my paper money folded. Still, dreams often are our subconscious minds’ parables. And I figured out that mine was telling me I’m taking too long to rewrite the climactic chapter of my WiP, Die by the Sword.

But in the light of day, I can also see it was my fear that spoke to me in that dream. “Keep it up, give in to all the distractions in this troubled world, and you’ll never finish this book,” it said.

And then I was able to say, “Sometimes you have to put in stuff that doesn’t belong in the piece to get to what does belong. Once you get the story and the characters where they need to be, you can cut, cut, snip, snip. The book will be fine, just give it a bit more time.”

So, this is a long way around telling you that I’m not quite finished writing Die by the Sword this month, but I’m close.

Meanwhile, Mischief in March, Book 3 of my Calendar Mystery series that now includes the follow-up short story “Detectives’ Honeymoon,” will be on sale from March 11, 2022 through March 18, 2022 for $2.99 at www.amazon.com/dp/B06XR1STRN and for £1.99 www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XR1STRN. If you’ve already bought the book, please review it on Amazon and/or Goodreads. If you’ve already bought, read, and reviewed this book, please share this notice with your friends.

Please stay safe and well, Juliet

P. S. Please note that I’ve changed my mind about republishing all my books and selling them through Draft2Digital. There seemed to be problems buying them from assorted merchants like Barnes and Noble, and it was taking me far more time to format them than I had. So if you want to keep up with my writing and publishing, just check my Amazon author age at https://www.amazon.com/Juliet-Kincaid/e/B00DB4HWRG