Nightmares

Nightmares, like my fears, feed my writing. I've already talked about what I fear and I guess my fears are incorporated into my nightmares. I'm lucky, I rarely have nightmares but when I do they're...bizarre for want of a better word. As a child I had a recurring nightmare of a tiny Indian man in a cupboard, after this drawers would launch themselves around my room. I used to wake up screaming and my mum would have to sit with me as I went back to sleep (on reflection that must have been a very boring job.)


One nightmare I will always remember was one that took place in my first job, the shop I used to work in. This nightmare helped me with my novella Bury the Hatchet and will come in handy for Cupid's Obsession. In the dream I was walking through an empty shop where everything seemed to sparkle. Suddenly, there was a flash and golden balloons were falling from the sky. Then I was standing in a long corridor where an elevator was at the end. I was closer and a girl - a girl I knew - was standing in front of me. Her head was bowed. Then she looked up. She screamed. Then she drew a knife to her throat and cut it. Then I woke up.


Weird, eh? 


That was the worst nightmare I ever had. I did the whole cliche jump out of bed thing and lay there pondering the horrific dream I had had. But, of course, this nightmare helped with many ideas that bubbled away in my mind. Of course this was a very The Shiningesque dream but Cupid's Obsession may be a homage to King's book and Kubrick's film - two very different things, I know. 


Just today, in fact, I was pondering over horror stories and how I'd only really like to write two novel sized horror stories and today I came to the three ones I would write. They will all be unrelated. I'm editing the first, the theme of which is madness. The second will be Cupid's Obsession - the theme of which will be love and obsession. And the third - the one that came to me today - will be about guilt. The story has been banging around in my head for a while but as I was watching the trailer for Prometheus again and was listening to Silent Melody as I walked down the street the story came to me. I won't tell you what it's about yet, only that it will have five main characters - four of which are based on four of my closest friends.