Inspiration post #8: Dreams

I have fairly vivid dreams. The other night, for instance, I dreamed I was searching for something to wear to an Indian wedding. The colors in that dream were especially bright. Sometimes in my dreams my husband does something to make me angry and when I wake up I'm mad at the poor guy. My dreams rarely result in stories. An exception to this is Speechless.

I dreamed very clearly of a man sitting on the front steps to a house, strumming his guitar. He wasn't singing. People were walking past him, not paying much attention, but he was alone. He didn't look unhappy, exactly--but maybe a little frustrated.

I woke up still picturing the look on his face, the flowers that bloomed in front of his house, the cracks in the sidewalk. And I asked myself why he was sitting there, playing music without words.

I travel quite a bit and even had the opportunity to live in Croatia for 5 months. I'm not fluent in any language except English, alas, but my journeys have taught me that we can communicate amazingly well nonverbally. I once had a conversation with my Zagreb building manager, who spoke Croatian and German, and a man who turned out to be a chimney sweep, and whose entire grasp of English turned out to be, "Bad. Boom!" It took some effort and a bit of extemporaneous dramatics, but in the end the three of us had an understanding.

In Speechless, I had the chance to explore what the deal was with that guitar player, and also challenge myself with a nonverbal main character. And Drew ended up one of my favorite guys.

Next week: Brute's Brown Tower