Trying to get the dream back

By Holly Lisle

I woke up this morning, having just dreamed the solution to a problem I’m having with the revision. Problem was, it was five in the morning, and I didn’t go to bed until one AM. So I lay there thinking about how I would use this solution — fixed it carefully in my mind, was absolutely sure I was fully awake and would remember the damned thing when I got up — and went back to sleep.

Now it’s gone. I have some tantalizing fragments — one of Baanraak’s scales hung on a silver chain, the ring that Molly gave Seolar, a shattered mirror refracting light in a thousand directions, and Baanraak, come to destroy Molly, staring at his own reflection in this shattered mirror and seeing …

… what?

Even typing this hasn’t shaken it lose. It’s in there, dammit. I can feel it. I’m working in silence this morning so I don’t disturb it or miss it … just to give it a chance to poke its nose back out and say “I’m here — use me.” But so far it has remained elusive, just whipping by in shadow at the back of my mind, reminding me that it’s there but that I’m not fast enough to catch it. I can’t even remember which of the three major problems it was the solution too.

I’d beat my head on the monitor, but it’s an LCD screen and that would be bad.

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