Book Three

’ve neglected my BLOG for a long time along with my writing. It’s time to get back in the mood. Well, it’s not so much mood as time. If we didn’t need to sleep, think of all the extra things we could accomplish. I bet if that happened, we’d eventually complain that we still didn’t have enough time—sigh.


I smile when a reader asks me about some of the symbolism beneath my stories. They ask what motivates Molly Folly Sallyforth. They wonder how Windslow feels about being wheelchair bound on earth and able to walk in Gabendoor. I smile because I don’t know. I enjoy they way I write because I experience each paragraph, each chapter, each book the way a reader must—one at a time. I never do know what will happen next. I reach a stopping point. I have a vague idea about what I think might happen next, but don’t learn the details until I actually write the chapter.

For book three, I began with Windslow’s stepmother cleaning his room. I wanted to account for some time passing between the last adventure and the new adventure. As a solution, I decided that Windslow spent several weeks at summer camp. On the day he was to return, Trish decided to clean his room. I started to chuckle when I wrote that Trish found Windslow’s dream-slip bracelet under his pillow. She absentmindedly put it on her wrist. “Oh my,” I said as I kept typing, realizing that Trish would end up in Gabendoor. Would she run into her kids or have her own adventure. I didn’t know. I finished the chapter and wished there were a couple more pages for me to read. I wanted to find out what would happen next. I went to bed, not knowing.

As I fell asleep, I imagined Trish in Gabendoor, thinking it was a natural dream. I grinned when I visualized her trying to fly, flopping on her stomach and sliding down a hill. The vision changed to Windslow and Hillary back at home with their mother. They spotted the dream-slip band. They tried their best to get the band back without raising suspicion. They failed. I could feel their worry about what would happen that night when they dream-slipped to Gabendoor. If they ran into their mother, what would they say? What would they do? About that time I fell asleep.

I thought about my semi-dreams and visions. I thought about them every night as I fell asleep. The sketchy scenes repeated with a slightly different variation each time. I started hearing bits of dialogue. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get any significant additional information.

Finally I found time to work on the next chapter. The details filled in as I typed. The dialogue flowed clearly in my mind. I had to type fast to keep up with my thoughts. After many hours, I finished two more chapters. I read over them again, enjoying the new things that took place.

I decided to keep writing. Maybe I could do another chapter. I ended up playing a solitaire card game on my PC and finally went to bed. As I fell asleep, previews of a new chapter began forming.

That’s how is works for me. Can I answer your questions about these characters of mine? Sometimes I can, but most of the time I’m just guessing like you.