Nightmare Scenarios

The book is back with the editor, and now I should be doing other things, like spending the day shopping for a winter coat, but I've got a bad case of homebodyitis at the moment. I think a lot of it is the residual effects from oversleeping, which was a residual effect of waking up in the middle of the night from a really intense nightmare, one of those where when I woke my heart was both racing and pounding. I guess I got an aerobic workout in my sleep. The nightmare had something to do with being a fugitive and knowing that people were tracking me. It started with me (in the dream) watching a TV show about someone being followed and doing nothing to hide or disguise herself, and me snarking about it, which is pretty much the way I watch Covert Affairs. Then suddenly I was that person and I had no idea what to do. The freaky thing was that I woke up before anything actually happened. It was the fear of what might happen that was causing the pounding heart and that made me take a long time to calm down and get back to sleep.

Hmm, story idea? Get sucked into the life of the character you're criticizing and see how well you deal with it?

The artist who does my book covers got back in touch with me about the idea of doing merchandise using the art. I know I mentioned this before. I'm pretty sure she means to re-purpose the art she's already done, like the various frogs from each book cover, not to draw new stuff, so sorry, no Sam the Gargoyle t-shirts. She wants to use Cafe Press, but I haven't been crazy about the quality of their stuff I've seen, and it's awfully pricey. It doesn't seem like a good place to go if you hope to sell in volume, though I suppose the benefit is no up-front costs to you to make things available. I haven't seen too many t-shirts or tote bags or the like based strictly on a book series. I don't recall there even being a lot of Harry Potter merchandise until the movies started coming out. Any thoughts, ideas or experiences with this sort of thing? My main problem is that I seem to have truly moved on from the series mentally and emotionally (sorry!), so it's hard for me to get back to a place of thinking about it.

Now I have to come up with a lesson plan for the kids tonight. I think we'll play another game on the xylophone. I've got a dad helping tonight because my usual co-teacher will be out. It'll be interesting to see how that affects Problem Child.

And I need to call my mom because it's her birthday. Happy birthday!