Writing the First Draft 8

Something odd happens to me when I’m writing the first draft of a book. I’m desperate to get it from my brain to the computer. I have a word count goal of 5000 words per day, which is doable. But what happens – the weird stuff – is that I begin a three hour sleep schedule.

During the day, I sometimes get exhausted and have to take a nap. Then, I wake three hours later. Even if the fatigue doesn’t happen to me during the day, I go to sleep at the normal time and wake three hours later.

When the first draft is over, I go back to sleeping 8-9 hours per night. But this three hour business is just funny. It happens with every book.

Also, I start having these really odd dreams. I dream in story lines; I always have. But these dreams are startlingly real, even if bizarre.

For example, last night I dreamed the plumbers repaired the kitchen sink. However, after they left, I turned on the faucet. I glanced down, to my left, to discover that my cabinets were filled with water. Then, the dishes disappeared and they became file cabinets and all my important papers were waterlogged. I can remember pulling out my cell phone and dialing the number – even remember the number. I recall the conversation with the plumbers, word for word.

Then, this zombie woman attacked me in the kitchen, and I had a choke hold on her and had to be careful not to break her neck – again. She had short brown hair and really dark circles under her eyes. While I was waiting for the plumbers, I decided to take out my stomach and spleen (I know, I know), then put it back it when I decided that major surgery wasn’t my strength. I just swallowed everything and it went back into place.

The plumbers came, they talked to a few customers – can still recall all those conversations – then were convinced to drain the water from my cabinets.

The dream itself is filled with all sorts of symbolism, if you’re into that sort of thing. I just love the fact that while I’m dreaming, I’m making notes of everything that’s happening, as if I’m an observer.

The whole process of writing a first draft is amazing – not the least of which is what happens to my mind.

But I’m still wondering about the zombie – she seemed so familiar…

Too Far? 3

Isn’t this taking marketing a bit far?

The Child Murder Suspect and Me 3

A little girl was murdered in San Antonio a dozen years ago. At the time, I was employed at The Big Bank, working in Customer Acceleration. That means if you really, really, really had a problem, you came to that department. I was in a supervisory position, which meant that I only got the cases that were truly severe.

I got one.

One day, a call was escalated to me, and the guy identified himself, then said, “You know who I am, right?”

I didn’t have a clue. He said his name again, so I made a note of it, called up his account, and asked how I could help. We got that out of the way, and during the whole call, I was polite to the extreme. He finally said, “You’re the only person who’s been decent to me in the last two months.”

The woman who’d escalated the call entered my office, and put a note on my desk. The little girl’s name. I immediately recognized the name of the caller. He was what the police call a Person of Interest. He had been a volunteer helping to search for the little girl, but several things he’d done and said had alerted the police.

His next question threw me off guard. “Do you know why they think I killed her?” he asked.

“No,” I said, fascinated and repelled at the same time.

“Because I’m going through a divorce and my bitch of an ex-wife told them I’d probably done it.”

Now, at this point I should have said something like, “Have I answered your concerns, Mr. X?” and gotten him off the phone. But I was a writer and he’d piqued my curiosity.

I talked to him for almost an hour, listening while he complained about his discipline problems with his two boys, his financial issues, his work, why he couldn’t have killed the little girl, why he was being persecuted by the police, and what he intended to do about it.

In the course of the conversation, he said something jarring to me about blue pajamas. I wrote it down as he was talking, all the while wondering what the hell I was doing. I’d given him my name. We lived in the same city.

At the end of the call, he asked if he could have my home number. I told him that it was against The Big Bank policy to release that information. Frankly, I was terrified that he’d asked. He only said, “I’ll find it.” Oh, goody, a little more fear.

When I hung up, I called the San Antonio Police Department and asked to speak to someone about the case. I was routed to about five different people, and finally related the information I’d learned to someone who sounded very, very bored.

The killer of that little girl has never been found. I was never contacted again. But I can’t help thinking about the case, the man with whom I spoke, and those damn blue pajamas. I wish I’d kept my notes, because that’s all I can remember.

That, and the sensation of my skin crawling whenever he laughed.