Author Archives

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Dreams – Scenic views

I have a recurring dream (with some variations here and there) that I have been dreaming for almost 20 years. I am hiking in the mountains with either friends or family. The trail takes us along a narrow trail next to a steep drop to a river far down below (the river is always to my right). The mountainside looks like a National Geographic photo and the skies are clear. The path becomes more and more treacherous, but we keep going.

At one stage, the path is so narrow that I am forced to hug the cliff wall and edge ahead slowly and carefully. In some dreams I start falling, but since I know I can fly in dreams, I usually just slow my descent to a crawl and land safely below. If I fall, the dream diverts to other topics here. If I manage to keep on the trail, we keep hiking and eventually reach a steep climb that takes us higher up into the mountains.

We clamber over the black rock exposed here and, eventually, the trail leads to a massive cliff face. The river falls (always to my right) at least 300 metres to a deep pool. To get to the other side of the waterfall, there is a swing that is hooked over a protruding rock nearby. The edge is slippery here, but I can’t remember falling even once.

Despite having a crippling fear of heights, I get onto the swing and take the dizzying dive to the other side. If I land beyond the pool, I stand in hip-high grass and I look back to where the swing is, once again, hooked on the rock by the end of the trail. Other times I simply fall into the pool and swim to the edge.

In variations, I’m in a boat on the river. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt as far as the waterfal in those dreams.

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Dreams – No, seriously, Hell is in the mall

Two or three years after the dream about the little girl opening the gates of hell, I dreamt another mall/hell dream.

A few friends and I are walking in the same mall as last time, and we notice people our age slipping into service exits. After witnessing several more people doing this, we investigate. The service exit we enter leads down into a large, shadowy cavern below the mall. There is graffiti on the walls and all kinds of, what my mind apparently designates as, underground shops (shops with party gear, tattoo parlours, nite clubs and a sprinkling of shops selling items that would appeal to alternative culturally inclined individuals).

There is an air of mystery and the forbidden. The further we walk into the seemingly endless darkness, the darker and more dangerous the themes become. Here and there we start seeing strangely changed people. Some have angular features and elongated limbs. I see a few that appear to have no white in their eyes. Soon, I feel uncomfortable but also fascinated by this place. Eventually we leave.

We return another night to explore this dangerously attractive underground party. Again we head deeper into the cavern. We explore further than we did before. Besides the people with the strange features, we also see creatures that look less human and more like demons.  At first, we glance nervously at these creatures, but slowly we start feeling more dangerous ourselves. There is an intoxicating euphoria in the air and I realise that I care less and less about things that would have scared me before…and that I actually like the danger.

Rather like that feeling of guilt you may have after eating a family member’s carefully stashed birthday chocolate, the nagging feeling that I’m falling prey to evil’s seductive lure pops into my head. Just the kind of insidious and practically irresistible kind of lure that can convince good people to let go of their good values. And there goes my irrepressible sense of responsibility. I realise that I will carry an eternal sense of guilt if I stay here and succumb. And with that, I  also suddenly realise that I have inadvertently entered one of the upper levels of hell because of my incessant need to prove that I’m not an innocent goody two shoes. (Fail, yes? lol)

At this point I wake up.

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Dreams – Hell is in the mall

When I was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, I had a lot of dreams about responsibility. This one was admittedly after playing Diablo I for probably every weekend for two months.

I’m walking around in Menlyn Park (before it was rebuilt) with my mother when I notice a strangely blank hallway. Its walls are grey and there are no shop windows. I walk around the corner to peer down the hall when I see a small girl sitting next to an unfinished section of the hallway. There is a construction sign to ward off curious shoppers and the hallway terminates in construction site with exposed bricks, wires and scaffolding.

I walk over to the girl to ask her where her parents are when I notice what she’s doing. She’s scratching occult runes into the powdery cement of the unpainted wall. My blood runs cold and I pick her up. After some frantic searching, I find her mother and feel relief flooding me.

Just wanting to check that all is well, I return to the spot where I found her. And there she is. As if I hadn’t taken her away just moments before. She scratches the last mark into the wall and I feel my stomach dropping away. She smiles a creepy little-girl smile at me and looks horrifically satisfied with what she has done.

In that moment I know that she has opened the gates of Hell and I am the only one who knows. With that comes a sudden all-encompassing fear of God. A phrase I had never quite understood before. But, in that moment, I know that God has put the blame squarely on my shoulders and it is I that will have to venture into the depths of Hell to close the gate. Flames lick up the uneven, cavern-like walls beyond the Gate. I feel very small and weak. But I know that I am far more afraid of the wrath of God than anything I will find down there. I venture in.

…

That is all I remember…except for vaguely Diablo-esque fighting as I attempt to somehow gain control of the dream and it becomes me clicking away on a mouse, closing the gates of Hell by removing my consciousness from my body and doing it through a computer screen. I don’t actually successfully close those gates before I wake up.

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Dreams

Something I have learned to avoid talking about in mixed company – being defined as company that includes “normal people” and “people like me” – is my oneiric adventures. If you don’t recognise the term, you probably have boring dreams compared to those of us who sometimes wonder why we bother waking up to the dreadfully uneventful and colourless world of everyday life.

Ever since I was a small child, I dreamt vivid dreams that haunted me during the day. Some dreams were exciting and beautiful, some dreams were terrifying and hideous. But one thing that I knew from early on was that my dreams were definitely not ordinary.

I think sometimes that, despite the fact that I never touched a drug more hardcore than your common cigarette or hooka (no marijuana or alcohol in there either), I most definitely know what it feels like to be high. Not only do I have a mild to moderate level of synesthesia, my dreams often look like, and sometimes even crazier than, the movie representations of acid dreams.

In some of my following posts I will share some of the dreams that have stuck with me from as early as age six.

Then, on to a related topic: I have spoken to people who have tried for years to obtain the “lucid dream” state. As far as I understand from such discussions, it is when you realise within a dream that you are, in fact, dreaming. That was something I made a project of when I was 10. After about one week, I could reliably realise I was dreaming every night. Of course, it helped a lot that I very often dreamt that I could fly. Sort of a dead give away, if you ask me.

Also, knowing that you’re dreaming makes it a lot easier to wake yourself from a nightmare – something I have done nights beyond counting. The trouble is when you fall asleep again…it is ridiculously difficult to not end up dreaming the same terrifying dream or just continue where you left off – this is something I really struggle with.

Something else that people often aspire to during this kind of awareness in a dream is to control the dream. To paraphrase what I just found on the topic of “controlling” your dream, it is when you will yourself to dream something specific. The best I’ve managed with this is to fall asleep dreaming something almost like what I wanted to dream and then having it degenerate into the crazy loops and plot holes that my dreams usually consist of. Which means, I dream the “target dream” for maybe 5% of what I can remember dreaming that night.

Otherwise, the moment I gain “control” of my dream, the other “characters” tend to put no effort into their performance. It makes for rather unsatisfactory, hollow oneiric experiences that have taught me to avoid taking “control” at all costs… The costs often pertaining to nightmares and waking up in a cold sweat.

You want an example of a dream? Well, here is about (what feels like) four hours in dream-time of a dream I had three nights ago:

I dreamt that zombies were once again making an appearance. In this dream they are these blue-skinned, black-clawed creatures (in another dream, they looked a little more like weresquids). The “disease” is spread through the usual savage biting and clawing that you see in movies, except that the zombies in my dreams are always exceptionally fast and well coordinated.

I run around in the streets, trying to get others to avoid contact with these surprisingly beautiful (in a scary way) undead. After what feels like hours, I see people becoming zombies (also a lot faster than you ever see in movies), people I had tried to warn earlier. Within five minutes, I am surrounded and they get me. You’d think the dream would end there, right?

Once I become a zombie, I feel socially obligated to savagely attack uninfected individuals and feel a deep-seated need to be better at it than any of the other zombies.

When I finally woke up, it took about three hours to shake the sheer pleasure of ripping through the flesh of my victims…with my teeth…to get over the sensation of chewing raw meat and letting the blood run out the corners of my mouth and over my skin.

 

Now, tell me again how your dream about being naked in a classroom or board meeting is weird. I dare you.

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It’s been a while

So, in the time I’ve been busy being a new parent, my brother-in-law has been busy impressing people with his writing. Though, admittedly, I am rather jealous of his achievements and I not-so-secretly wish I could beat him, I would love to share his stories with you.

Since the first story of his that I linked, he has had two more honourable  mentions and a win. Go have a look at the stories written by Riaan Els!

I honestly think I’d enjoy and hate working on a collaboration with him. Enjoy, because he has innovative ideas and definitely does not think like I do. And hate, because he is obviously very talented (making me feel like a dud) and definitely does not think like I do.

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Setbacks

I took part in NaNoWriMo in November, but I never finished. No, it wasn’t just the usual: I gave up. I went through a really rough time when my cat was poisoned and died. She had been part of the way I wrote and actually contributed more than I had realised when she had been around. Every time I even thought about writing, I would crumble and cry uncontrollably.

It took me a month and a half to finally gather the courage to write without her. And then I could only work on pieces that contained no emotional content.

In the end, I had stopped my NaNoWriMo attempt at ±32 000 words. I was still perfectly on target at that point. If I had been able to keep going at the same pace, I’m sure that I would have succeeded in writing the required 50 000 words in 30 days.

Now, at the end of December (2012), I am about to go into labour and there is just no way I can predict how much I will be able to get done in a day. It might sound silly to someone who has never been pregnant, but it is really not easy to concentrate or gather enough motivation to write more than 300 words in one go anymore.

I’m super uncomfortable. I can hardly walk half the time (read up about “symphysis pubis dysfunction” if you think I’m exaggerating). My porridge brain is also pretty bad at the moment. My husband’s been laughing himself silly at the strange spoonerisms and incoherencies I have been committing. This is hardly conducive to meaningful writing.

It looks like I’ll have a pretty full schedule once my baby settles into a more predictable routine next year. I’m hoping to start getting back to about 500 words a day in April. So, the blog will probably also be very quiet until then. *sigh* Such is life, n’est ce pas?

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NaNoWriMo, here we come!

The countdown has started and soon writers taking part in NaNoWriMo will fall off the map for 30 days. Kick-off parties are being held and preparations are being made in the form of notes, notifications to family and friends, acquisition of writing aids (like snacks, music and writing buddies) and extensive mental preparation.

At my local kick-off party (go see pics at a fello WriMo’s blog), I met some of my fellow writers in the Pretoria (South Africa) region. Some were very vocal, some were very quiet and some were those gems of people who actually went to a lot of effort to welcome old and new participants. I now have a Writer’s Block sitting on my desk (okay, fine, it’s sitting on my calligraphy box on my desk), two plot bunnies (a blue origami bunny I folded myself and a plush bunny I actually won), my inner editor – soon to be incarcerated – and a tiny, noisy stress ball.

One of the most useful things I got was the little inner editor stick girly (you will see her in the feature pic). How on earth is this little googly-eyed ice lolly stick supposed to be of any help, you ask? Well, first off I need to explain the concept of inner editors.

The inner editor is that part of any writer that nitpicks about everything from spelling, grammar, character inconsistencies to plot holes. The sad part is, for most writers, this inner editor is a crippling, mean-spirited critic telling them that their work is terrible and that they should do the world a favour and just stop writing. And because this inner editor is a part of you, it knows exactly how to get you down in the dirt and keep kicking you where it hurts.

So, to make sure that my inner editor does minimal damage to my word count during November, I’m going to make a little cage for the effigy I have been provided with. Every time I start going back and changing things I suddenly realise don’t make sense or make the story sound stupid or are unusable for some other obscure reason, I will look at my incarcerated inner editor and smirk at it. In the words of Silver Knight Gothic (Dragon Hunters), I shall tell it firmly, “I do not fear you, ugly thing! My heart is pure as a freshwater spring!” and simply continue writing.

Best of luck to all the WriMos out there!

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Science Fiction

As a subgenre of fantasy, Science Fiction (or SciFi, as most of us call it,) is actually a broad genre on its own. There are very few hard and fast rules for this subgenre. It can be far in the future, like Battle Star Galactica, or even a “long, long time ago”, like Star Wars. The only real factor is technology or a not-yet-realised scientific future.

Some SciFi is very pointedly a story that takes place in space (any space that’s beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, really) – think Star Trek or Alien – but others may use Earth or a planet like Earth to give the story a more subtle SciFi angle – Æon Flux and Real Steel can give you a bit of insight on this angle.

If you have looked at some of the older SciFi, you will even see that some of the elements that were Science Fiction in those days, are now a reality – like the Internet and nano-machines.

Popular themes:

  • Space exploration
  • Intergalactic politics with alien races
  • Aliens
  • Bio-engineering
  • Nanotechnology
  • Reviving extinct species (think Jurassic Park)
  • Colonisation of other planets/solar systems
  • Space pirates
  • Bionics
  • Robots
  • Cyborgs
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Domination of the human race by aliens/machines
  • Mystical forces from space (2001: A Space Odessy, Avatar, Star Wars  and many more)
  • Alternate realities
  • Mutliverse
  • Time travel
  • Teleportation
  • And lots, lots more…

It’s really so broad, one could write volumes about this subgenre. But, for me, it is important to note that it can easily be used as a flavour in the other fantasy subgenres. Examples of fantasy that typically contain SciFi elements are: Steam Punk, Cyberpunk, Dying Earth and Other Planet.

Never for a moment think that subgenres are mostly found in their pure forms. The very way they have found their way into existence is by developing from other forms of the main genre. The rules are hardly ever set in stone.

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NaNoWriMo

So, National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. Every year in November, this organisation encourages writers (and aspiring writers) from across the world to attempt writing a whole book in one month. Having had contact with writers who have attempted this before, I have been put under the firm impression that this challenge is not for sissies.

Writing 50 000 words in 30 days is a massive undertaking…especially if you have a life that is notorious for happening at you a lot. Some writers do this in their spare time. Some writers dedicate every waking moment to it. Some simply write to write. Some write to make progress on novels they have been planning for a while.

However you look at it. It is a massive achievement to have written 50 000 words in a month. It comes down to writing 1666+ every day for 30 days. 1666+ might not sound like a lot, but if you want to write anything resembling an actual story, you might run into some difficulties in filling that quota. Just ask some of the veterans and look at the amount of ‘beat the block’ kind of links on the main page, and you’ll quickly realise that very few writers don’t get stuck.

I might just be idealistic, but I hope to use this year’s NaNoWriMo to get my writing habit firmly settled and to prove to myself that I can, in fact, write a 300 000-word novel in less than a year.

Good luck to all the writers taking on NaNoWriMo this year! May your fingers find their way on your keyboard and may your ideas flow like the mighty Amazon. We can do this!

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Memoire of a lost garden

Neglected garden

“Mo-o-o-om, can we go home now?”

The slug squirmed as Jeremy poked it with a stick. It took me aback to see him acting so violently despite my own revulsion at seeing the fat slimy thing on a withered rose bush. The rose bush had been a gift for Evie’s eightieth birthday. I had chosen it for its zebra striped pink and white petals.

“No, I need to shout at Sipho.”

“Huh?”

“Shout at Sipho!”

“Fine!”

“Sipho! I want to go back home so I can play on my PC! Come out here so I can shout at you!”

“Shhh! What are you doing? He’ll hear you!”

“But you said–”

The squeek of the garden gate made us turn around just in time to see Sipho peering into the yard.

“Miesies Johanna? Are you lost?”

I pulled myself up to my full height and puffed angrily. “Aren’t you lost? Where have you been? This garden hasn’t seen a drop of water in months!”

“I look after Miesies Evie’s garden.”

“You call this looking after a garden?” I heard my voice go a little shrill.

“Miesies?” He looked at a bit of a loss. “Miesies Evie’s garden is next door.”