About the writing process (or lack thereof)

I can’t say, dear reader, exactly how I started writing The Revenkist, but I do remeber a dream. And, I don’t mean some well meaning ideal that I’ve clung on to for years. I mean an actual, honest to goodness, dream. I’ve been subjected to the sudden realization that the mythic landscapes and vistas of my imagination were not real upon waking for the majority of my life. That is to say, I’m a vivid dreamer. And instead of my dreams becoming more mundane over the years, dreams about taxes and bill replacing star lit vistas and castles in the clouds, my dreams have become more mythic and epic over the years. That isn’t to say that i don’t have my fair share of mundane dreams. Waking up after sepnding the night in some misremembered, memory hodgepodge of jr. highschool class rooms and awkward crushes that never actually happened still occur, but the dream that started it all was one that I’ll never forget. Here is the purple prose that I slapped down after breakfast that morning:

“Crisp is the night. The blue black sky filled with innumerable stars— their light making the world of night glow. Wisps of silver light, in the shape of clouds, accent the momentum of wonder. A hand falls from the cold air into the still warm sand, fingers stretching and burying themselves like nightcrawlers— ever deeper beneath the surface. Warmth cascades from between the fingers up the arm along skin that is hidden under a loose layer of fabric. Where the wave of warmth travels and relaxes the flesh, an army of goose bumps retreats. A shuddering breath from a quivering breast adds motion to the air, and the wind picks up and carries its heat into the night sky. A palm frond sways as the sound of the air rushing past adds texture to the scene. From behind, the snorting breath of a horse's nostrils, and a begging hoof shoveling sand break the momentary trance. A hand, buried to the forearm in a warm sheath, is withdrawn. The cool air washes down the skin, sending its soldiers marching down to the wrist once more. A grasping motion sends the grit of sand, still clinging to the palm, falling towards the dune. Starlight, bright this night, makes flecks of light dance in the falling grains. A black glove covers faintly glowing skin, and a rider mounts their black horse and, with hands grasping stirrups, flies straight over the ridge of a dune and into the black of night.” 

How’s that for sticky prose? The dream itself was vivid in a way no other sensory dream had ever been. It was so real that I had to write it down in exacting detail and even then I still missed the crushing of sand under foot and hoof. It was the seed from which an entire novel sprang forth out of my head. There was another major driver of the energy and direction of the book, namely the loss of my mother, to whom the book is enscribed, but the dream is where the imagry came from. Admittedly the dream never really makes it into the book. It is only loosely refrenced on the very last page, but the DNA of it still exists in the fabric of the book and it still fascinates me that this dream about a hooded figure in the desert inspired an entire novel.

Thats how the process started. A visceral dream and a compulsion to write. And I kept writing. The process was that the story essentially wrote itself. It just lightning bolted itself from my mind to the page. Simple questions answered themselves as the question itself was formulated. Is it a man or a woman? Where is she from? How did she get there? Where did she get her powers? And so on. It felt more like an interrogation than an artistic episode. I was compelled to write the novel. It wanted to be written. I could have thought of plenty of other things to do with my time but it demanded an extra 40 hours a week of work next to my day job as a teacher.

But that’s the story for now. You can find my book, The Revenkist by Anthony Farber, on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Kobo and other retailers internationally. And don’t worry, the prose isn’t so noble anymore.

Happy Reading.