Being Open

When I decided to combine three, finished novellas into one novel, it was something new to me. It meant three couples, with only one of them what might be seen as typical-- even there, the supernatural is involved. As for the themes of the novellas, each was covered loosely in the previous blog. 

Because I am hoping to do more promoting of my Mystic Shadows Series, I got to know these books better, as I edited them for the umpteenth time. Fortunately, for the novellas, their original covers still worked.

Those covers represented three couples, but when the novel came along, what kind of cover would work? Maybe, no couple but background or a monster or two? With its title being Diablo Canyon, I wanted something that represented the challenge these humans were facing. I believe, in many ways, the conflict we still see-- supernatural or physical.

The thing is, although the first novella began with a dream, in actuality, they all were aimed toward the challenge in the last book. It is there, the reason for everything is revealed, with, of course, another romance and how the two earlier ones were doing.

Those, who haven't been reading my blog for very long, might not know that dreams are a big part of my life-- the night-time sort. Some of mine are prosaic or seem that way, pieces of my life, or scenes that I see like going to a movie theater. Mine are usually colorful and the beauty of nature or the sort of art I wish I could have when I wake up. In my experience, dreams don't always make sense. Mine are sometimes where I've been, but not always. They don't have to, as it's the brain playing around, or is it the muse trying to speak to us? In the past, some of my dreams have worked to be inspiration for books. 

The one, that began that first novella, came because I had lost a cat I loved very much. I'd have paid a lot of money to save her life. She was too young to die, but something was catastrophically wrong inside. All I could do was let her go, which happened when the veterinarian came out to the house and gave her a merciful end. I cried so much. I still cry when I think about it, which is why I don't include her picture here. I think we love many animals, but always there is one very special. She was that for me and still is.

 That night I asked for a dream to know if reincarnation was true. I had thought this cat had come to me twice before. Both other times, she'd lived out her whole lifetime. This time I wanted to know-- could I get her again? Was reincarnation true? 

The dream did not turn out to be about my cat, but it was powerful.

A man and woman were on a train. They had been lovers in previous lifetimes, but always star-crossed. This time they were both destined to die early from accidents.

There were two spirit guides looking at what was happening. As the lovers kissed, a gold ring was clearly seen over the kiss. The guides saw it and observed how rare true soul mate love was.

 'They will just ruin things again if we don't let them fix it this time,' they said. 

At the same time, there was another couple, where the woman was plotting to kill the man to get his fortune. What can fates do to fix these two star-crossed lovers? The dream had the answer.

When I woke that morning, I realized I had to write this story. For it to work, as a book, it'd take some adjusting, like no train, but the ideas for what would work were already percolating. I knew it'd be set in the ranching country of Montana. Having raised cattle for a big part of my life, with many trips to Montana, the setting was a natural. The cowboy life has long fascinated me, even though our piece of it is small.

 

After the first came together, it led to a second and then a third novella, each with their own romance and mysticism. I wrote about the general premises of all three in the previous blog. What I didn't expect is to put the three together, with the spice, for which there is no room for in my novellas. That became the novel-- Diablo Canyon.

~~~

 Once again, this blog has ended up too long. The importance of Diablo Canyon, its cover, and theme, that'll be next blog. Remember, what I am trying to do with my blogs on writing is to encourage others to find their own creativity. Sure sales are nice but mainly to know others found something of value in choosing the books.

To me, ironically, Diablo Canyon became my most important book with its combinations of energy and the unexpected way it worked out. Why did that happen? I believe it came about because I was open to it. That is also to me what creativity is all about-- being open in life and our dreams.

Zen thinking

 This was not a good week for us as I got sick with some kind of stomach upset, which has improved, but not enough for me to write about my original idea for Saturday's blog. 

I decided instead to pull up some blogs from nearly 20 years ago and things I believed then, which I still do. Makes it handy to repeat it here for something fresh. Not sure how many of you read my blogs back then; but if so, even I'd forgotten these two. 

The key though is I still see things this way-- even as I no longer am that woman. Well I am mentally and emotionally but physically, not so much; but then, should I be? Life is about change, some decades more than others.This clearly looked like a good time for thinking about life. 

I still like all the quotes from earlier-- well except the one by Marsha Norman. If she was right, my soul is more confused than when I am awake lol. I like to dream though, one of the fun things for me about night-- although one of those recently was full of weird events. No nightmares but just what the heck was that about?

Friday, August 05, 2005

Zen Photographs

Photographs often are just recordings of events, places, but once in awhile one is what I call a Zen photograph-- they capture an idea, a feeling that is bigger than the individual elements within the photo. They are not greater art per se but carry a message which came not through careful planning but just a going with the flow or a lucky accident. They come out of a moment where the Universe flows through the camera to tell a story bigger than its parts.

This is such a photo. The woman has waded into the ocean, not way out, not swimming but she's in the sea of life. Her arms are opening to whatever she might want to hold. She is not afraid of the tides nor the huge sea behind her. She looks ahead toward life and what she can take into herself.

A Zen photo is a gift. This one shows what I wish my life to be.

August 2, 2005,

Favorite Quotes

Let my love like sunlight surround you and yet give you illumined freedom. Tagore

If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it is yours. If it doesn't, it never was.

Dreams are necessary to life. Anais Nin

I do not unmarry...... But I marry myself. I take my fate as within. Sena Jeter Naslund

Where we choose to be-- we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being. Sena Jeter Naslund

Dreams are ... illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you. Marsha Norman

The thing you have to be prepared for is that other people don't always dream your dream.  Linda Ronstadt

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.   Marcel Proust

The Talmud says, If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?

Dreams: Visions and Reality

 

Photo from Montana

Once again, my idea for a blog is being rewritten by a dream, which led to an idea or maybe more accurately thoughts when I woke. Things I'd not have written otherwise.  Dream first.

Ranch Boss and I were leaving the small town closest to our farm. I saw a road turning up  a hill just past a small store. I wanted to walk up it. So we left our vehicle and proceeded up the narrow road. It was pretty with tall trees and lots of ivy. Most of the houses were still occupied but a few had been abandoned. Ivy entwined everywhere. 

As we got closer to the top of the hill, we saw some of the usual piles of small limbs and brush that had been piled to burn in the fall. By this time, we knew no more homes would be and turned around. This time we saw what we had missed earlier. Roads and bulldozed clearings were where there had been trees and orchards. The cleared areas were massive, seemingly everywhere we looked. 

Those people, who lived where we had passed coming up, had no clue what was about to happen as the roads in didn't pass their homes, but when apartment buildings and houses were built, as seemed obvious, their life would change in ways they couldn't have imagined. No chance to change any of it-- it was too late.

When I woke, I thought as I always do. What did that mean? I've driven that Oregon road many times, but the side road never. So, did the dream have a cultural or political meaning?

In Oregon, there were rules passed in 1973, which made it difficult to do what we had just seen in the dream. Farm land, timber, orchards were limited for development and that included private land and government. Vast tracts of land were protected from uses not intended to help the people but just to make money. The kind of development I've seen in other states including Arizona where I live much of the year and maybe soon,  permanently.

The thing about regulations is they can be good or bad. Some are in place simply to enrich others as a reward for what they have done. Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch said that such regulations can be good but also if they go too far, they can stifle needed growth (paraphrased). That's where having strong, honest, ethical leaders is so important-- not those paid off by someone with greed as a motive. How do we as voters determine which is which?

The Oregon leaders, like Tom McCall, who set environmental laws in place valued something more than dollars. They knew you can't eat dollars but rather must have places to buy what dollars can purchase. Imagine if those leaders had not existed then.

We don't have to imagine. We are seeing it, and it's not just one political party, wish it was. Ranch Boss and I have traveled across the United States from border to border and the Pacific to the Atlantic, both flying and driving. In many places, there are hodgepodge developments thrust wherever someone wished. It's not just close to cities but also in the middle of seemingly nowhere. There are places people can buy chunks of raw land where there is no water but just dreams. 

What we see today so many places is where land is cut up with no more hope of making a living on it than those first homesteaders had, with many places too dry with no water. Who profits from that?

Another thing we see in Arizona is where other countries have bought land that they take the water to raise crops that will be sent to those countries. The water they use require deeper and deeper wells for those already there-- until the time there is no water down there.

Too often, ordinary folk have no power. In fact, even big ranches and farms owned by families are often forced to be subdivided or sold to the highest bidder. They are torn apart due to federal and state estate taxes if the owners have not found a way to protect their operations, sometimes of many generations.

In my opinion, right now, too many leaders, state or federal, use their positions to enrich themselves. Give me one reason why so many who come into office without a lot end up wealthy? If you don't know that's true, do some research.

When they run for office, they are all for the ordinary folk, but once in, it changes. Many may know that they are going to do that, but some may just be seduced. I don't know, but I do know we used to have leaders who could look ahead and see what was good for the people.

So, what does any of this mean, my dream or what came after? I guess that depends on what matters most to voters-- talk or actions.

Another thing-- is it too late to change what is happening like in my dream and a lot more? Voting is the only hope of which I can imagine changing things. Voting is when the little people do get a chance to make a difference. The thing is though what matters most-- short term or long term? We can't stop change. It's coming, but which direction?

Dreams and lack of control

 

Dreams can be forgotten, by many, or interpreted, sometimes by someone else. Once in a while, I think they need to be shared, which is what I hope to do here with dreams from this week. (image from Stencil)

I was very upset when I woke from this dream. I seemed to be planning to watch a show on television. This is something I don't actually do as I quit watching the TV a couple of years ago. 

In the dream, I had turned a show on to see what it was going to do next. It's not a show I watch in my daytime, but dreams can do what they want. It had brought in a new hero and he was very weird looking, to say the least. He was a regular man but he had what looked like spider feet out his back. Yuck and how does that make a hero???

The show then changed to cartoons, not like Disney but more like the Simpsons (again not a show I had seen other than clips from it). I thought that's ridiculous. I tried to turn it off but could not. I couldn't turn off the TV either; so I switched channels.

Another weird type show from something that seemed beyond normal. At that point, I was feeling panic when I could not stop it. That's when I woke with that panicked feeling. When we both woke, I told Ranch Boss the dream and how upsetting it had been. Normally my dreams are just fine but this was not.

He then told me his dream of the same time, right before waking. He owned a bigger ranch than we have and it was being overrun by people, who had the freedom to walk where they chose, use what they wanted. That went so far as going to build a set of homes on our land that they didn't own, but again, nothing to stop them.

We realized that both or our dreams indicated a lack of personal control. We have felt some of that feeling in our lives. Upsetting to feel you can't really control what is happening, not only in your life, country, but also the world. This is really not a good time to be an empath.

I felt a lot of panic, not unusual for me with anxiety attacks a norm for a number of  years.

But, then, something else happened, that afternoon, where on a fluke, a momentary impulse, Ranch Boss looked out our bedroom window and was aware a small rodent was in our swimming pool, with no real way for it to get out short of drowning. He rushed out there and with the net, he scooped the little critter out to dry land, where it ran off. It had been a very lucky baby ground squirrel.

So... we might not have much control over a lot of what is happening, but we can do what we can and for some being, it might be the difference between life and death. I don't have an answer for how to stop the feelings of panic at lack of control, but that little baby able to run away did help some.

What dreams can mean

Dreams are a big part of my life-- the night time sort, not daytime. Some have meaning to them but so far no prophetic dreams, which is fine with me. Some are prosaic or seem that way like recently going to a movie theater, which seemed meaningless until the end of it. I'd left the film part way to go to the bathroom. I came back to see the end except it went into scenes of people watching films, with nothing to do with the story I'd left. Those scenes kept going on and on until I realized the story would never return and the meaning was how we wait around for an ending that may never come, and it does relate to life.

Some of my dreams work into parts of books. One became a book that led to two more books. It began because in the fall of 2013, I lost a cat I loved very much. I'd have paid a lot of money to save her life. She was too young to die, but something was catastrophically wrong inside. All I could do was let her go, which happened when the veterinarian came out to the house and gave her a merciful end. I cried so much. I still cry when I think about it, which is why I don't include her picture here.

 That night I asked for a dream to know if reincarnation was true. I had thought this cat had come to me twice. Both other times, she'd lived out her whole lifetime. This time I wanted to know if reincarnation was true. If it was, I hoped I'd get her back again. The dream was not about cats but it was powerful.

A man and woman were on a train. They had been lovers in previous lifetimes. This time they were both destined to die early from accidents.

There were two spirit guides looking at what was happening. As the lovers kissed, a gold ring was clearly seen over the kiss. The guides saw it and

observed how rare that kind of love was. 'They will just ruin things again if we don't let them fix it this time,' they said. At the same time, there was another couple, where the woman was plotting to kill the man to get his money. What can fates do to fix these two unfairnesses? The dream had the answer with a transfer of souls.

Now, it's been a lot of years since the dream, but some elements are still strong in my memory especially that ring over their kiss. I still see it if I think about it and have never heard of such a thing anywhere except in my fiction novella.

When I woke that morning, I realized I had to write this story. There were elements I could not use-- like the train. There were other elements that I added to it to fill out the book of these lovers who had met in high school but never did anything about their feelings until years later when tragedy cuts their time short. I added scenes that fit the characters like a time in the spirit at Bear Mountain. That's what writing is about-- an initial idea and then what!

I wrote the novella, When Fates Conspire, and put it out in January 2014 when I began to think this had potential for something more. 

No dream this time, but the woman who lost her son is having a hard time, in The Dark of the Moon, holding onto the family ranch with her main help gone. A man, who sees the

other side and is trained as a sorcerer, comes to the ranch after hearing of her plight. He offers to help, and it's not hard to see where this is going since it's a romance. 

The mystical side though went beyond the sorcerer as the son who had been killed, who had found joy with his soul mate in their new bodies, begins to feel a draw to a ranch where he's never been and that he can't explain. The soul connection is there when mother and lost son meet. Oh, there is the little matter of villains and a killer bear.

Were two enough? Not close, It takes three. Storm in the Canyon has a shape-shifting druid hero. Langston Agency is called by the restored son to figure out what is happening in a canyon with strange powers growing by the day. This is a canyon known for its tragic endings. The spirit world is also concerned and sends a spirit guide into human form to help. She can't stay forever but is romance in the air? Of course, but so is a logical explanation for why monsters of old might be gaining power in a

Montana ranch canyon.

Three novellas from one dream, but it wasn't the end. I wanted to combine them into one novel-- Diablo Canyon. I also wanted to add in the spice that novellas don't have enough room to have. 

Having three into one has a confusing aspect. If someone doesn't read the whole blurb and buys the novella and then the novel, they might feel they were cheated. The novellas do have one feature, or rather more of it than the novel-- Dante's quotes fit each chapter. What a poet he was.

Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.    Dante Alighieri

novellas available at Amazon:  

When Fates Conspire: https://www.amazon.com/Fates-Conspire-Diablo-Canyon-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00I53K8CE

 The Dark of the Moon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K105OVY

Storm in the Canyon: https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Canyon-Diablo-Book-ebook/dp/B00L0LQEG2 

Full length novel with those three and spice put together: https://www.amazon.com/Diablo-Canyon-Trilogy-Rain-Trueax-ebook/dp/B00M9NXVDO

Horse stories

 

image from Stencil

This will probably seem way different from my recent blogs, but it's not for my life experiences and isn't that what blogs are about.

I came across this YouTube through one of those things we get if we are on YouTube-- recommendations. Not sure why but it's interesting to me and might be to some of you.

Five Friends who died with horse accidents.

Although I have had my own interests in horse, I have only a few experiences to share. In my historical novels, I have horses as part of the stories-- more rarely in the contemporary but also in the urban fantasy novels. I base some of that on my times on horseback--though i am not remotely a good horse person. 

Growing up, my favorite books were the Black Stallion series and had almost all of them from various Christmas or birthday gifts. Because my father was allergic to horses, we couldn't have them-- with one exception. He decided to give it a try and we got a gelding, which worked for a while before it began to make my father sick. I had enough experience with him (don't remember if I knew his name). One of them was life experience kind. I saddled him and rode up the dirt road on our property that led to the back of our 80 acres. All had seemed well, until I turned him to head back to the farm. He began to run. I had little control and pulled on the reins to stop him. He stopped all right and I went right over his head. I was not hurt but definitely got scared by it. Not long after that he was gone from the farm but not because I told anybody. I did not. it wasn't the horse's fault.

I had a couple of trail ride experiences in later years. One went smoothly, along the Metolius River. Lovely time. The second was heading into the pine forest in that area. The horse I was riding apparently was what can be called barn sour as when we all turned, he broke into a run to head for the barns. I remembered my earlier experience, thought I can never stay on and ahead was a paved road. So, I kicked my feet out of the stirrups and rolled to the right side of the trail, all loose dirt. If i hadn't been wearing a sleeveless shirt, all would have been well, but I was, scraped my shoulder and had to head to a nearby town for a tetanus shut.

Horses continued to fascinate me. I debated taking lessons when I was in my 50s but just never did it. Our Oregon farm wasn't good for horses, too wet, although we boarded a friend's horse for a few years before she died of old age. For our limited land, we had enough cattle and sheep, sometimes too many, and horses didn't make sense.

My other horse experiences were pretty much without incident. At my age, there won't be more as starting over with horses would make no sense now. I still love them but do see the need to know what you are doing with them-- and even then, things can go wrong as you will see in the link, if you read it. . 

Groop

 

No, I didn't misspell that. It was a dream and kind of an odd dream. I had apparently been taking a class. The teacher left us an assignment to write what we thought regarding a word,

Groop

As best, in my dream, I knew when I looked at it, I had never seen such a word. I wasn't sure if looking at a dictionary was okay but I had one on my desk. There was the word and some meanings.

Groop

Water

Life

Well that worked pretty well to give me some ideas on what to write mainly regarding what made life work for us. It was all in long hand and I wrote the things I thought that made life more worthwhile. It was things like nature, animals, and who knows what else I wrote in the dream. I began to wonder if looking in a dictionary for the meaning of the word had been okay. Was I supposed to know the word. I wrote two pages and then needed to fill in some more before I woke. I had no idea what the professor wanted from the assignment but water is life on this planet and then what makes life good was my approach.

After I woke as I laid there I wondered why such an odd dream about an assignment and was I supposed to learn something from a word that doesn't exist.

Have you heard the word Grok-- another word that wasn't real until it appeared in a book? It means how we can connect with someone without words and it's now in the dictionary. I doubt Groop will appear there but it is good to think what makes life good for us.

Education

 

From 1972 at Montezuma's Castle, Arizona. What do you know about it?

Because I dream a lot, I try to remember them for possible interest later. Sometimes that works and often it doesn’t. Either way, I enjoy dreaming vivid stories and images.

Last week, I dreamed my husband and I were at a convention of some sort. It was held in an interesting area, but I was staying with the trailer and the cats (typical of my life).

The part that seemed important was he and I were driving around and I began to think I needed to share with him some ideas I had about education. Although I was an education major in college, I didn’t complete my degree (one term shy). I had though gotten all the major courses-- missing only student teaching for one quarter (babies and life got in the way—my choice).

So, in the dream, I found a piece of paper to write what I thought was important in education.What is its greatest purpose?

First to give students the tools to continue educating themselves when they leave traditional school. Back then, among other things, that meant learning to use libraries, card catalogs, how to write a thesis and stick to the subject. Today, it might mean the internet. It’s about knowing how to learn after the school is behind us.

Second is to provide inspiration for why do you want to learn more. And not just about things that you can use to make money. For things that fascinate and intrigue you. When schools inspire, education does not end with graduation.

Third was to provide a reason to learn more. That means for jobs, careers, hobbies, relationships, really all the things that we use to improve our life situation.

 ~~~~~~~~

I was left with more thinking about a school system and what it teaches. Of course, there are facts, dates, events, rules, etc.; but in the end, do they matter after graduation? They matter if they can be used in some way and then inspire the student to keep learning. It might seem when we memorized (something I did with cards back in grade school) that 8 x 8 = 64 that it doesn’t matter; but it’s brain development and someday we might need it. Even if it’s to fall asleep at night.

 I am concerned, as an old lady, how the schools have come at odds with the parents over schools wanting to teach attitudes, reconfigure society and rewrite what had been taught in the past with things like CRT, 1619 Project, intersectionality, woke, and on it goes, where many of us elders don't even know what the words mean (even after looking them up). What actually is being taught???

You know, when I was in school (eons ago), I didn't have any idea what political party my teachers belonged to or if they did nor what religion. If a school wants to teach attitudes that suit the teacher, and a student graduates, maybe with no basic skills, as apparently Oregon now wants to decree, where do they go next especially if they never got a love of learning. Learning is not a means to an end but rather a beginning… or so said my dream.

What do you think the purpose of education is?

 

by Diane: My widowhood dream

 by Diane

The early morning dream was just before I would awaken for the day - a time for almost lucid dreaming.

The dream took place at an Arizona highway gas/deli convenience store. Coming back from the toilets, Fisherman Hubby beckoned me to go back to the van across the street to leave.  I didn't want to leave before eating at the café, but I followed reluctantly across the street where the others were gathering to leave.  I was tardy being last in the group to leave. As I slowly walked across the street towards the van, I was flabbergasted. At the right of us was a large black cinder cone-shaped old fumarole. 

 I turned to Fisherman Hubby, " The fumarole has eroded a lot since we were here last." No answer. I turned away towards the increasingly quickening to fall black stones running as fast as water into a hole surrounding the fumarole.  The falling black shiny stones were not threatening me. To the contrary, they were falling into a deep hole in the ground.  The glittering black rocks were moving too fast to see their actual composition but they reminded me of semi-precious jet. Jet like Jean-Val-Jean the convict turned his convict identity around by establishing a factory making black jet buttons and with the profits he became a philanthropist.  

I waited for surely I would be missed and the van and Fisherman Hubby would come right back for me. When it didn't, I felt a little empty  with thoughts of never seeing Fisherman Hubby ever again.  I was mostly concerned about not having my purse with ID and credit cards. As I walked back towards the Deli,  I didn't look back. I entertained thoughts of how I could manage now. Be like an amnesiac? I now am free to make a new identity separate from my marriage identity entwined with Fisherman Hubby. 

In retrospect after being fully awake I see the black volcanic cone like the unexpressed anger that grew in our relationship between me and Fisherman Hubby as his ALS progressed. Also my growing fear that his anger would erupt. For short spirts before exhaustion he was frightfully strong in legs, arms and hands. Plus he was not aware, how in his need to control me, he could push his fingers into my chest hard enough to really hurt me. I did once yell at him not to push me and his feelings were very hurt that I would think he could and would.

In my new beginnings I revel in the spaciousness of our home. And I continue to find it hard to give up some of his things. Do I really need two really heavy 5 foot long crow bars? I just gave away to a grand child Fisherman Hubby's waffle maker.

With this post, I am thinking the widowhood series is winding down and I am taking a short recess until April. In April when the shop/studio will be useable and I will be sharing the results. Now on to doing taxes and such.

One of those dreams

 by Rain Trueax

My, what I call, movie dreams have plots and characters that make them interesting. I consider them to be gifts from the muse. I don't always write their descriptions, but I did this one from October 10, 2019. It is followed by how the dream could be used in a book. I've had some that worked into a story or even gave me a plot.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

 A couple are in the wilderness but apparently about to arrest someone. The man is a sheriff or something. He wears a gun. He is attacked by the person using a knife, stabbing him in the shoulder and chest. He does not reach for his gun. The heroine has a gun or takes his, not sure but she kills the attacker, then has to help the hero with his wound.

They both head for a small town in the mountains. She is still with him but now does not respect him for not fighting back. Is he a coward? In town they request if any property is available to buy. She has $10,000 which was the reward for the man she killed. The people point up the hill to a small log church. It’s been upgraded they are told.

When they get to the church, it’s pretty inside but the sanctuary is still being used by someone preaching. They go around back to where the quarters are for a pastor. It obviously has no one living in it but it’s nice with tidy living room and sofa, kitchen, inside bathroom and bedroom. Dream ends

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wake thinking how this could be a novella connected to my Oregon historicals with one of the grown up kids. If the hero had a backstory where he’d used his gun too many times. Looks at the living man coming toward him and knows he can’t do it again. He didn’t see the knife in time.

She is offended that he doesn’t protect himself but she tends his wound, aware of his ropy muscles. She’s been in love with him but can’t love a man who has become a coward.

They travel to that small woodsy community where there’s only a store, homes, a stable and blacksmith. They ask for a house to buy with her reward money. It is on the hill. A log church where the pastor moved on with the gold fever. Some still go there. It’s only $6000 and has living quarters upgraded.

I see the potential of them getting the cabin, marrying to look proper as she still loves him but won’t be the mate of a coward. She takes on the job of sheriff in the community.

The church is the interesting thing for him. What if he becomes the pastor there for the small flock where theirs had left and they are doing it themselves. What if instead of religion, he teaches responsibility and love, consequences, spiritual connection to nature. What if he cuts down trees on their land to expand the cabin. She works as the sheriff but not much happens there.

Then a man comes into town who is looking for the killer of his brother. He would shoot her but the hero stops in, draws the man to him, knocks the gun out of his hand and gives him enough blows to send him to the ground where she can cuff him for their small jail to wait for the US marshal to come through.

What if she sees him differently and they consummate their desire? Did it take him doing something brave for her to recognize the man he really is? If so, is that a character flaw in her? Lots of 'What ifs'

I wrote down possible characters from previous books and the dates they had been born if I did the book and set it in a certain time period: Laura Kane 1855; Elijah Stone 1856;  Elizabeth Kane 1857; Jeremy Forester 1858; Rufus Kane 1859; Jessica Forester 1862--  the children of the Stevens family adopted and born.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For me, movie dreams are about the fun as they make a time of dreaming into something else-- a time of magick. I used to do digital paintings from some of them. That gave them a physical reality that dreams usually don't have for me.