The Blogger Book Fair: Nightmares? Bring them on. How all life’s answers can be found in dreams
Welcome to yet another day of the Blogger Book Fair! Before we dive into reading Wynne’s fabulous guest post, make sure you enter the giveaway for an eBook copy of Lichgates (Grimoire Trilogy #1) and vote for Lichgates and your other favorite books over at the Blogger Book Fair Awards!
Thank you so much to S. M. Boyce for renting me out this spot on her fabulous blog.
My name is Wynne and I’m an insomniac. (Big shout-out to any readers who have ever found themselves ironing sheets at 4 a.m. or know the words to every infomercial — “Slap your troubles away with the Slap Chop…You’re going to love my nuts.” I feel your pain.)
I’ve always been a bad sleeper. When I was about four, I started having night terrors. Screaming, crying, sleepwalking. My parents tried to exorcise me. They hung gems around my neck. They put gates in front of stairwells so I wouldn’t die during my nocturnal strolls.
This lasted almost every night until I was 12. I know. Lucky parents.
I wrote a lot of horror stories as a kid. I don’t know if the stories caused the nightmares or if the nightmares inspired the stories. (My mom is convinced the nightmares began after I saw Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Could be. That is a freaking scary video.)
Now when I’m lucky enough to fall asleep, I am treated to the most vivid dreams. Most are nonsensical. Once, I found that I had written in my dream journal: “The monkeys are eating our faces.” Yikes. Zombie chimps (chombies?) — no wonder I was hysterical when I was growing up. Stupid over-active imagination.
But dreams have fed creativity, inventions and discoveries. Stephanie Meyer saw a couple in a meadow. Stephen King dreamed of an author terrorized by a psychotic fan. Paul McCartney’s Yesterday. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. All born from movies of the mind.
How many times have you gone to sleep with a question, or a dilemma and awoke with the answer?
My debut novel, What Kills Me, was born because I couldn’t sleep. At 3 a.m. one night, I lay in bed, conjuring this image of a girl crawling out of a well, soaked in blood. My over-active imagination took over. And while I was writing, whenever I would get stuck, I’d sleep on it and it would sort itself out in the morning. Maybe the monkeys helped.
So today I am grateful for the insomnia and the nightmares, because now I have a book — and a Slap Chop.
What was the weirdest or scariest dream that you’ve ever had? Or when was the last time sleep solved a problem? Write Wynne and let her know. Except don’t mention zombie chimps — those freak her out.
Learn more about What Kills Me
Goodreads | Wynne Channing’s Website
Grab your copy of What Kills Me
Amazon US | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo
About the book: An ancient prophecy warns of a girl destined to cause the extinction of the vampire race. So when 17-year-old Axelia falls into a sacred well filled with blood and emerges a vampire, the immortal empire believes she is this legendary destroyer. Hunted by soldiers and mercenaries, Axelia and her reluctant ally, the vampire bladesmith Lucas, must battle to survive. How will she convince the empire that she is just an innocent teenager-turned bloodsucker and not a creature of destruction? And if she cannot, can a vampire who is afraid of bugs summon the courage to fight a nation of immortals?
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About Wynne: Wynne Channing is a national newspaper reporter and young adult novelist. Wynne loves telling stories and as a journalist, she has interviewed everyone from Daniel Radcliffe and Hugh Jackman to the president of the Maldives and Duchess Sarah Ferguson. The closest she has come to interviewing a vampire is sitting down with True Blood‘s Alexander Skarsgard (he didn’t bite). She briefly considered calling her debut novel “Well” so then everyone would say: “Well written by Wynne Channing.”
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