#fridayflash--Waterbed Dreams

Ronald was almost giddy as bedtime approached. He'd had to wait two whole days, but his mom and dad gave him the thumbs up for tonight. Finally his brand-new waterbed was warm enough to sleep on.

He'd been on boats of all sizes with his dad, in all different types of weather. The rocking never made him sick, only comforted him. For this reason, his parents decided a waterbed would be best.

Sleep rarely came easy for Ronald. Most nights were a combination of him struggling to fall under the Sandman's spell and being jolted awake by nightmares and horrible dreamscapes. But the thoughts of the soothing rocking and nowhere for the underbed phantom creatures to hide meant restful nights ahead.

It worked at first. Ronald drifted off into a nice slumber minutes after his mother tucked him in. The dreams that did invade his sleep were nice, comforting epics.

Something pushed into his back. His eyes stayed shut, but he felt something else brush past underneath him. It was like a fish dancing about inside the liquid mattress. That thought brought out a smile. Fish in there would actually be pretty cool. He wouldn't just be sleeping on a waterbed; he'd be sleeping on a lake or the ocean.

As he waited for the fish to come near again, he noticed the scent in the air. It reminded him of the deep sea fishing expeditions he'd gone on with his dad. In addition, warmth bathed over him. The salty air, warm sun, and rocking of the waves pulled him back down into sleep.

Ronald awoke refreshed, though he kept his eyes shut. Morning could start in a few minutes. He stretched, feeling the rolling water beneath him. When was the last time he'd slept so peacefully? He imagined his grades improving, and he wouldn't be so quick to lash out at others when they annoyed him. Why hadn't he insisted on a waterbed long ago?

Wait. He could still smell the sea air and feel the sun beating down on him. His eyes flashed open and he found himself on a raft in the middle of the ocean. To make matters worse, two dorsal fins circled around him, not ten feet away.

Shoot. The waterbed hadn't worked after all. True, he'd fallen asleep easy enough, but he was still plagued by nightmares. He looked in every direction, but could see nothing but the sky meeting the bluish-green waters. And now those dorsal fins were less than five feet from his raft.

This would be an excellent time to wake up. Why wasn't he waking up?

He wasn't waking up.

Random Musings

I'll probably use that title more in the future. It works for posts like this. I don't have much to say today, but I thought I'd give an update on how my writing is going.

I had decided to split my time between working on my novel and working on my screenplay. Then I decided that was kind of dumb. Why not just work on the novel, get it done, and while I'm waiting for it too cool down for the first set of revisions, I can get started on my screenplay? Made sense to me, so that's what I've decided. I'm close--closer than I thought, really--to getting to the actual first draft of my novel. I have the rough outline done, meaning I have it structured, who the POV character is going to be for each chapter, and the basic idea of what each chapter is going to be about. I don't want to over-plot since that takes some of the fun out of the actual writing process, but I do want to know a bit about what's going on with each chapter before I start. I'm hoping I'll actually be writing by early next week, but I'll see how the rest of the outlining goes.

I had a couple of early mornings in the last couple of weeks thanks to short stories. Dreams woke me up somewhere around 5 AM both times, and I couldn't think of going back to sleep because these stories needed to get written. The first time was really kind of surreal. I had a dream where I was a writer in a class and I wrote a short story. I don't know how well the story was received in my dream because I woke up before anyone saw it. I rushed to my computer, turned it on, and fired up Word. A little while later I had the entire thing written. It was actually pretty easy since, in a weird, twisted way, I'd already written it. I knew the beginning, middle, and end before I even dragged my buns out of bed.

The second time wasn't as easy. This time it was more of your classic dream situation. I had the dream and woke up with the idea burning in me. I knew it wouldn't wait, so again I fired up the computer and Word and got typing. This time I didn't have the whole thing in my head, just a vague idea that I found really cool. I wrote 12 pages that day and 7 or 8 the next, so I guess it really needed to get out of my head (I'm usually a 3 or 4 page a day guy). I haven't looked at either story yet, but I think they're pretty good (I'll disagree with that when I read through them for the first time, but my trusty red pen will make 'em good).

That's it for today. Until next time, keep reading and/or writing!