Bad Dreams and Not So Good Days

I find there is little more frustrating than going to bed early, falling asleep and then waking up not much later and being unable to sleep.

That happened to me last night. I went to bed early instead of staying up late to read too much of my current book, the third in George R.R. Martin’s, Game of Thrones series. Then I fell asleep. Less than an hour later I woke up and spent the rest of the night having on-and-off nightmares.

The nightmares were a direct result of my day at work. It wasn’t a good day. One of my consultants hadn’t shown up to work since Wednesday. We tried to reach him and couldn’t. Finally, our branch administrator called the hotel where he was temporarily living and had them check his room. It turned out that he’d passed away several days before.

I feel bad for him. For one thing, it took a few days for anyone to notice he was missing and then, when they did, it was his employer rather than family. Secondly, how sad to die in a hotel room, far away from home. The police are investigating to find out if it was a natural death or self-inflicted but, either way, it’s a sad thing.

It was an unsettling day at work to say the least. My vivid imagination has a horrible habit of picturing things and wondering how often that happens in hotel rooms. It also didn’t help that another consultant that we’ve just hired is going to be temporarily locating to the same town and thus, staying in the hotel. We’ve asked the hotel not to tell our new consultant what happened. My guess is that they won’t. It’s probably not good publicity for a hotel to have someone die.

It’s an unpleasant thought, isn’t it? The hotel said they were calling in a special company to sanitize and thoroughly clean the room. Yet, the twisted part of me can’t help wondering if the next person to stay in that room will have any idea. I’m guessing not. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

So, combined with my sadness regarding the death of our employee, I was also trying to quash these rather dark thoughts as I tried to sleep. Unfortunately, our subconscious is pretty hard to control so I didn’t do very well.

As a result, I woke up groggy and fuzzy-headed. That’s no way to begin a day. A worse way to begin a day is to find out you have to fire someone.

I don’t like firing people, even when they deserve it. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. I have the power to find people jobs and to take them away. In this case, it was a lady who’d only been working for us for three months. She had been having some issues already. Then, she didn’t show up to work on Monday and no one could reach her. It became my job to try to get hold of her.

I was a little paranoid by this time. Monday was the day we found out about our deceased consultant so, later that day, when you have another consultant who can’t be tracked down, you can’t help but wonder if she, too, might have passed away and no one had found her.
Fortunately, she was fine. She had just had some extremely personal crisis that she couldn’t discuss. She had forgotten her phone so she couldn’t let anyone know she wasn’t going to work.

I think if this had been a one-off occurrence, she would still have a job. However, it wasn’t the first time and so I was told to let her go.

It’s a hard thing to let someone know they won’t be returning to work again. In this case, she wasn’t surprised but she was still upset. She cried. I hate when they cry. I tend to be overly sympathetic by nature, anyway. This is why they tease me in the office for liking the ‘gutter puppies’- the down-and-out people who haven’t been able to find a job and need something, anything to pay the bills. I just feel sorry for them. I’m a firm believer in that if someone is willing to work and wants to work, they should be allowed to work. There’s far too many people out there who don’t want to work and don’t do so and expect to live on ‘free money’ from the government. I like to help people.

So, this is why I don’t like it when they cry. It makes me feel guilty even when I have nothing to really feel guilty about. I don’t think anyone truly likes being the bearer of bad news and I’m no exception.

I’m hoping that tomorrow, I won’t have anyone die nor do I have to fire anyone. I am meeting with a candidate as a favour to his dad who is another candidate. The son was released from jail last year and has been trying to get back on his feet. His dad wants me to see if we can help him. I might be able to but it’s hard to find jobs for people with felonies on their records. Did I mention I tend to be over-sympathetic. Some people might call me a sucker. I probably am.

Still, tonight, I’m hoping to sleep without nightmares and tomorrow, I’m hoping for a better day. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ll keep you posted.

Happy Wednesday!

Daylight Savings Time: Wintering Forward

It's a gloomy Thursday outside, cold and grey. There was a magnificant sunrise starting to happen on the horizon. It was still dark when I got up. I hate when Daylight Savings Time happens. I had got used to the dawn twilight peeking in my window at 6:45 a.m. as if urging me to get up. As it got lighter, I became more awake. When I'd get home from work, it would be getting dark around 6:30 p.m. so that by the time I ate dinner, I could pull the blinds and settle in for the night.

Daylight Savings Time has ruined that pattern. Now when I wake up, it's still completely dark. When I woke up Monday morning, I seriously couldn't figure out why my alarm clock was going off. It seemed so early that I almost turned off the music that was trying to wake me up. Then I groggily realized that it was, in fact, time to get up. My body was not fooled. It knew that it was really only 5:45 a.m. but thanks to the conspirators of the universe, I had to go along with their sadistic plot to pretend it was an hour later.

I know that recently, they've moved the dates around as to when Daylight Savings Time begins and ends. It used to be a little later in the Spring and a little earlier in the Autumn. That made a little more sense. It gave the earth a little more time to spin so that it was not quite so dramatic a change to us. It also used to let us say "Spring Forward", "Fall Back" to remember which way to move the hour on the clock. Naturally, I find it necessary to point out that when move Daylight Savings Time up to WINTER, that nice little adage doesn't really help. Yes, it is still winter. Spring begins on March 21 (or 22, depending where you are). Daylight Savings Time happened on March 8th. Yes, people, we are now Wintering Forward but still Falling Back. That's a bit odd really, isn't it?

I know it's all about saving electricity and all that but some of us humans are already just a few steps away from wanting to hibernate in the winter (and yes, mum, I am actually talking about you). Thus, like a big fuzzy bear who is planning on sleeping until late March but is rudely awoken while it's still pitch black and freezing outside and then isn't allowed to sleep anymore, the new, earlier Daylight Savings Time is a little intrusive. There real sign of spring outside except for the fact that it no longer looks like Siberia but, rather, a grey soggy version of it and so it's a little unfair to expect us to instantly accept the change in time. It might not be so bad in places like California where their season exist of "Sunny with a chance of heavy rain", "Sunny with a less chance of rain but it's still possible," "Sunny and hot with no chance of rain whatsoever unless it's that weird drizzle that's just wet enough to make the cars look dirty" and "Sunny with a rare chance of rain but since it's Autumn, it could happen." Yet here, in the Midwest, it's still completely dark in the mornings. Also, I like it to get dark earlier at night. In the summer, it's nice to have long days. In the winter, it's nice to be able to cosily settle in the evenings and enjoy the glow of an electric fireplace.

I can still do that but I've been cheated. I have less time with my fireplace in the evenings and instead, that useful darkness is being forced on me in the mornings making it extremely hard to wake up. I'd like to be able to keep that darkness in the evenings a little longer, the way it used to be. I didn't like the change in time much then but at least it wasn't so dramatic, it evened out day and night a little better, rather like balancing just right on a see-saw so that it remains perfectly still rather.

I know in a week, darkness in the morning and light in the evenings will seem normal. Then the days will start to lengthen more noticeably and I'll wonder what I was complaining about. Then we'll have to move the clocks back and I'll complain about it not being dark in the mornings any more and have short the day feels because of the earlier night.

Yet, for now, I'm grousing about this side of the see-saw, the side that leaves my bedroom dark and inviting in the mornings when I have to leave my warm bed for the coldness of the late winter day. It's hard enough to get up in the mornings but when it's still dark, it can be nearly impossible. Of course, if I went to bed earlier, that might help but what fun would complaining be then?

Happy Thursday.

The Joys of Literary Schizophrenia

I've discovered it's impossible to plan these blogs. I've tried. Some days I have every intention of having a rant and then I get sidetracked and I end up waffling about something completely unrelated.

I have a feeling today will be one of those days. It's a Monday again. It's a rainy, windy Monday morning. It reminds me of England when the weather is like this. The sidewalks are shiny with puddles, the wind tosses the fallen leaves which stick to everything with the dampness. The wind manages to blow the rain so no matter whether you have a hood or an umbrella, there's no fighting the rain and you end up wet. As is always the case on Mondays, I didn't want to get up. I wanted to lie longer, listening to the howl of the wind outside. Yet, as is also always the case on Mondays, I knew I couldn't.

I take pleasure in the fact that this my last week of work before the holidays. That, alone, made it easier to emerge from my covers and get out of bed. This week is actually already better. I have 95% of my shopping done. I giftwrapped last night. My Christmas cards are mailed. And, writing wise, I think I'm back on track.

Now I'm pulling out of my mini-funk, writing is easier. I'm editing the first novel I ever wrote at the moment. I'm intending to try, once more, to throw my lot into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest this year with this novel. I know a lot of writers hate to edit but I have to say, I actually enjoy it as long as I don't do it immediately after I write a novel. I tend to work on other projects for a while and then, when I'm ready, I go back to the novel and edit. I love doing that; it's a luxury to have already created that fictional world I'm reentering and just being able to look around, listen to the characters whose story I'm telling and see if it still fits. It's like getting to hang out with old friends again.

That's what's happening at the moment. I love my first novel, Rainlight. That's just an opinion, not an expression of arrogance. It's a novel about three teenage boys who all have their own issues to deal with. One of them, David, is hearing strange voices, mysterious whispers that he doesn't understand. His brother, John, is just trying to survive under the tyrannical thumb of his religiously zealous father. John's best friend Michael, has been diagnosed as bi-polar. The three of them are just trying to survive, to seem normal although normalcy keeps eluding them. It's a strange novel but it's not really mine; it belongs to David, John and Michael. They're just nice enough to let me tell their story. And I'm not nice back which is a little unfair. I'm not good at telling stories with puppys, rainbows and sparkles. Their story is funny, poignant and, at moments, heartbreaking. You'll hate me at the end if you ever read it but it's only the first novel in a series of five and in order for the larger story to be told, sacrifices had to be made.

So I'm revisiting that novel at the moment. I still love it but since I wrote it, I've written seven more and lots of short stories. My writing is better now, more fluid. I'm not trying to be Stephen King or Neil Gaiman anymore; I've figured out who I am as a writer. I've a thousand influences but, in the end, it's my writing that has to shine. Editing Rainlight after writing so much other stuff feels like a treat. I've mentioned before how I don't think I'd be a good fit in a writing program. The truth is though I think there are things I can gain from them, ultimately, the goal of a writing program is to make me into a better writer and if writing eight novels hasn't done that, no writing program will.

But writing those other novels has done that. It was hard to write Revelation, the last book in my series about John, David and Michael. It meant I had to leave those characters and move on. Yet they never really left me, they lie low, waiting until it's their turn again. In the meantime, I've 'found' other characters: Jimmy DeLeon, a modern day Joab from the Old Testament, trying to be a loyal soldier for his boss, Ethan, the modern day King David. Briar Richards, whose love for her skater boy threatens to destroy the fragile connection to life to which she clings. And then there's Ryder, Bastian, Foster and Gaz, my Sleepers. Some of them are dead, some of them are not but they all have ties to Sleep, a place where a few chosen go when they die in hopes to find meaning and redemption from their troubled lives.

I don't know which characters will find me next though I have a suspicion that Gaz, from my novel Sleep, will not be appeased. He's the type who knows how to get his own story; no matter how quiet my other voices, Gaz is willing to pipe in and let me know he's waiting.

You probably think I'm crazy. I probably am. Though a friend who is also a writer told me that she, too, hears the voices and she calls it her literary schitzophrenia. I love that term. It's so accurate and true. When I hear my voices, my heart leaps, just a little. No matter how dark life can get, those voices sometimes get me through. They let me follow them into their world for a while and they let me sketch it with words. It's a haven and I love it.

I've only edited Rainlight for one night and already I feel different. I feel like there's a piece of me missing when I'm not writing or talking to my characters. That piece of me is back and it feels right. While I'm editing, I'm still submitting, still trying to find that one agent or publisher who really does want to take a chance on a new writer. Somehow the rejections are a little less painful when I'm content with writing or editing because I remember again why I write in the first place.

I can't wait to get back to editing tonight. It makes getting through the workday easier. It makes the numbing dullness of my day job tolerable because my night job is waiting.

Happy Monday.