Saturday afternoon, I finished The Sweetest Burn, book two in the Broken Destiny series. I’ve said before that my two favorite words to write are “the end” even if I know that it really only means “take one” because there will be revisions. In fact, I already revised the first 100 pages of The Sweetest Burn while still writing the novel. Now that it’s turned in, I will do at least one more revision based on my editor’s recommendations, then at least one more based on the copy editor’s notes, and then I will have a final chance to tweak the book once again when I receive the page proofs. This is the normal process for every book, by the way, and I thank God for that because first drafts are full of suck. That’s kind of expected, or editors and copy editors wouldn’t have jobs to begin with. Last year at the Romantic Times convention, I had a first draft mistakenly released to the public via Arcs (advance reading copies) for The Beautiful Ashes, and it felt as embarrassing as if I’d gone out in public without my clothes on. Just like I wouldn’t choose to go around in public naked, I never want readers getting a hold of my books before the editing process has been completed again because all those edits? They’re like clothes for a book. You could go without them, but then ALL your flaws are hangin’ out there for the world to see ;).
What does this have to do with the aliens mentioned in the subject line, you might wonder? *grin* I’m getting to that. As you can imagine, finishing a book is a thrilling and exhausting process. And apparently, when my mind reaches that critical combination of thrilled/exhausted, it manifests aliens in my dreams. I seriously do not know why, but when I was close to finishing the first Night Prince book in 2011, this alien dream happened. And the day after I turned in The Sweetest Burn, my brain struck again with the aliens. In this dream, I had also just finished turning in The Sweetest Burn when I suddenly realized that I’d forgotten to add all the alien characters to it. Worse than that, without the alien characters, then I couldn’t add the intergalactic civil war subplot between battling alien factions that was so critical to the book, it would be the main plot of the final novel in the Broken Destiny series. I woke up from that dream still furious with myself for not remembering to add the aliens and alien war subplot. However, as anyone who’s read The Beautiful Ashes already knows, there are NO ALIENS in the Broken Destiny series. In fact, I’ve never written about aliens in my life, and I have no alien stories sitting around in my brain, either… or do I? *wink* In my dream, I had a whole list of characters, plots and subplots, so my subconscious clearly begs to differ. However, I didn’t write them down once I woke up, so now, most of it is gone from memory. Let’s see if it comes back when I’m done or almost done writing my next novel. If so, then I’ll take it as a sign from above to consider writing an alien book ;).
LOL, Oh my. I don’t think I have ever dreamed about aliens at least not that I remember but I have woke up mad at myself or at someone else because of a dream. Isn’t it strange that even though we know it was all a dream, it still effects our mood the next day?
Yes! I have bitched at my husband the next morning for things that he did in my dreams, much to his surprise.
Omg I really hope you write an Alien novel!
The Sweetest Burn is already up for pre-order on Amazon, sadly the Kindle version isn’t up yet.
It always takes longer for the ebook preorder link to go up, though I have no idea why.
Maybe you should start a dream sequence, alien serial story and post it on your website!! That would be an interesting story to read and it will also give your subconscious the outlet it is begging for. LOL!
Ha! Maybe ;).
An alien book by you would be AMAZING. I actually got my hopes up when I saw the title of the blog post!
And I remember your attempt to recall the ARCs of The Beautiful Ashes. I hope you ended up getting most or all of them back, and I especially hope that no one posted a review of it based on that version!
Hi Jeaniene,
ROFL! Can I say I now feel a little less weird with some of the crazy dreams I have?
This is what I do and I don’t know if it will help you or not, but if it does, then I, and your other readers, might get something really cool out of this. Do you have a favorite place, in or around your house, where you can sit and relax? You can block out the rest of the world and it’s just you? If so, here’s what I do. First of all, I make sure my cell phone and landline can’t interfere with me. Ask anyone in the house to leave you be for a bit and then go to that spot. I usually bring a pen and a notebook, and get comfortable. I then just let myself go. If I get stuck, sometimes a glass of wine helps. I get myself as relaxed as possible without falling asleep, which isn’t always easy. It’s like putting yourself into a meditative state of mind. Letting the conscious mind go to sleep and the sub-conscious or super-conscious mind come forward. As soon as something comes to mind, I start making notes. Sometimes just looking around before I start writing notes. I just write down things that come to mind. A person’s name, a character description, a place, anything and everything. Could be there’s an alien or outer space romance hiding inside and it’s trying to work it’s way out.
Looking forward to whatever comes from the alien dreams.
Best!
Roseann