SLEEPER started off as something entirely different to what it eventually became. In fact, when I originally sat down to write it, my intention was to create a bedtime story for children... Something similar to harry potter, involving a bunch of young teens who discover that they share a unique gift, the ability to manipulate their own dreams, and in doing so, they realise that they can actually alter the real world. It is not long before they find out that they aren't the only ones. Embarking on an epic quest to save the dreams of kids across the world from some kind of big bad who has a warped sense of justice.
I don't think I need to tell you that it quickly mutated from dreams into nightmares.
So, what happened? Why did I decide to write a book about a serial killer?
I can answer that with another question... Why can't I do both?
When I sat down to write SLEEPER, I had every intention of writing the book I mentioned above, but I was stopped. I had the characters all set up, the beginning and the end, but the bits in between eluded me and, at this moment in time, most still do.
Then, I had the dream...
I remember it as if it was yesterday. I'm walking home from work and I come across an alley and there at the far end of the street looks to be a couple engaged in what looked to be intercourse. I debate about going around and finding another route, but for some reason, I linger.
I can't tell you why, I mean, we've all had some kind of perverted characteristic enter our minds and take control at some point when we're dreaming, right?
So, I just stand there at the alley's entrance and wait... Smoking cigarette after cigarette (another sign I knew I was dreaming... as I haven't touched a cancer-stick since I was twenty-one, and that was nearly eleven years ago - Yay me).
Eventually, I looked down the alley, it's empty... So, I step into it and immediately I'm confronted by a tall dark silhouette, a man (I can tell by the stature) and his entire body is vibrating, just like when you used to pause old films on a VHS. (If you don't know what that is, google it...)
Dream me is paralysed, heart pounding in their chest and unable to move. Then, I wake up and the real me is like: Hey, that would be a great horror / thriller story.
I guess it also didn't help that I was reading a little book called "Exquisite Corpse" - Poppy Z. Brite, either.
If you have ever read that book, first, I applaud you cause it's not an easy read, mainly for the excruciatingly graphic detail Brite uses to describe their killers' methods of killing. I won't lie, I had to put the book down many times to get some fresh air, but that does not mean it's a bad book. No, far from it. In fact, it's a very good book because it did what I believe Brite intended, it made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
Anyway, I digress... In essence, that dream quickly (with a few tweaks here and there) became the opening chapter of my book.
SLEEPER took to a very dark place and I'm going to be completely honest with you, I still haven't fully recovered, but it played one key role in my life... It reawakened my passion for writing and I wouldn't have it any other way.
And that's about the long and the short of it,
So, until next time...
See ya!
SAM
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