The Detective is on the (Head) Case

hand me that fluffy pillow

Do you have recurrent dreams? Maybe you have one that falls in the “I didn’t study for this test” category. They’re fairly common, which says something about the trauma the educational system left in the deep recesses of our brains. Psychologists theorize that these particular nightmares tend to pop up before a stress-inducing event, like a job interview. I used to have a variation on that theme where I dreamt I had completely forgotten that I had a test the next morning. Pretty realistic too. Talk about retrospective shivers …

Lately, I’ve had a nagging recurring dream—like 4 nights in a row—that doesn’t fit in any of the usual categories (flying, falling, being naked at a party …). It is not a nightmare, which is a good thing if you have to relive it on a regular basis. Not terrifying at all. I’m not actively in it, either. Neither is anybody I know or have ever met in real life. It’s a literary dream. Before you congratulate me on the efficient use of my nap time, let me explain.

I dream I have written a short story featuring Harry McLean. He’s a character I wheel out when I’m inspired to pen a humorous and light-hearted yarn. Harry is a very laid-back private investigator. He’s the kind of PI that’ll catch a cold standing all night in the rain in a back alley because a client needs ammunition to win a nasty divorce case. Even when he accidentally stumbles into some hard crime, the stories have a relaxed and breezy feel. Harry is an old-school pavement pounder with a crush on the woman who helps him set his traps. Her name is Marylou. She’ smart, funny, and a stunner. Marylou is not in my dream. Maybe if I managed to get her in there, that would solve my problem (where is that nifty Inception technology when you need it).

What is the problem, you wonder. Apart from the thing that dreams do: vanish a few seconds after waking up.

I remember a few things. Long walks through the dunes, an interview with a mysterious elderly woman, tea served in antique blue china.

And a sentence stuck in my head:

Everybody has a soul. What they do with it and what it does to them is a different matter.

It sounds ominous but doesn’t give me a clue of what the story is about. That’s not the problem.

I write a lot of stories. I have probably four or five lodged in my head at all times. The book coming out this summer, the one I hope will come after that, the novella I’m writing in collaboration, a couple of projects that need revising. My mental attic is a neuron short of a hoarder’s hovel. With a better filing system. It won’t come as a surprise that I dream of stories. The writers reading this post will smile and say: Oh yes, I also wrote the novel of the century last night and I don’t remember a stitch of it, except that it was brilliant, a total grand slam!

And that’s the rub. The biggest part of my problem is that the Harry McLean story is not brilliant at all. It’s an abysmal failure. It doesn’t hang together properly. It doesn’t work. The ending sucks. How do I know? Because I recall thinking, in a flash of lucid dreaming: this story starts well and then falls pitifully flat.

I suspect that’s why the dream keeps happening. The mess needs to be fixed. It would be easier if one of these nights, I could put a finger on, at least, the premise of the tale.

An option would be to sit at the keyboard and put Harry McLean to work. Hire my own detective. I have little to work with but he’s a resourceful follow. I’ll drop him on a beach, send him up to a beachfront home, and sit him down in a stuffy living room full of knickknacks and doilies. I will assume the tea is watery and the china veined with cracks. Harry has been in stickier spots before. I should trust him to solve the case and my recurring dream at the same time. Yes. That’s what I’ll do.

Here are a few snippets of Harry in action.

His first appearance was in Back Alley Blues (Expat Press, free to read), doing some basic work.

Harry had been glued to the man like a stubborn tar ball to a shoe sole for three days and most of three nights. Without anything to show for his professional dedication.

Then he went to the seaside for Caleb’s Canon (Guilty Crime Story Magazine), after a long shift somewhere in the woods.

Hollywood hunks looked sexy when they needed a shave, Harry looked like he had worked a nasty shift deep in a coal mine somewhere around the turn of the century, the one before Y2K.

A bit later, he went lakeside to help an old friend in Cottonmouths (Black Cat Weekly). (I just realized I’m running the man ragged.)

Harry was sitting at the table doing a crossword puzzle. He looked far too bright-eyed for a man who had just pulled off an all-nighter. He also had a glass of rye by his elbow.

Eventually we meet the woman, in Sweet Marylou (Unnerving, Illicit Motions Anthology).

Harry watched from the other side of the street. Three sales guys converged on Marylou, synthetic smiles plastered on their mugs. She was lovely, with just the right amount of embarrassment to find herself in a leather and wax smelling place where talk centered on engines and mechanical parts.

There’s more Harry coming soon. I’ll keep you posted. The man has been busy. Hopefully, he can get on my dream case. For a reasonable price.

Here’s Harry’s most recent story …

In Flame of the West, published in the special Detective issue of Guilty Crime Story Magazine, Harry is hired to find a stolen sword (guess which one Tolkien fans!) … but was it really stolen?

And a guest post on Kevin’s Corner, where I talk about how Russell Thayer and I went about writing a novella together: Could this be the beginning of a great friendship?