A Little More Personal: The Dream

I had a dream… a couple years ago.  Lol

So, as I avoid writing (too tired to be creative right now) I started looking through some old docs on my computer and I remembered a dream I had had a number of years ago.  It had been so powerful I felt compelled to write it down.  So I did a little searching and found it!  Wow… it was dated 2/17/2009.  :-/

I’ve copied it below.  As I read this, I couldn’t help but wonder if this will ever happen for me.  My own insecurities say “no”.  I’ve always been a master of self-sabotage and demoralization.  It’s because of this that I crave reassurance and when that reassurance goes missing, the “no”s get louder.  :(

But my needy nature is a topic for a different post.  This is for the dream that will, hopefully, become a reality.  I know it isn’t entirely specific but I wrote this in the bleary moments of the morning (pre-coffee) so I went for the quick and easy description.

Enjoy!

~Nick

My dream:

“In ten years I imagined, during my ups, that I would be married or in some way united with a guy I would call my husband.  We were happy.  I would get home from work before him.  I did not really see where I was working but I knew that I liked it and it was fun.  When he arrived home I would be doing something around the house, a vibrant mix of old homey comfort and super modern design.  He would hold me and kiss me and it was an overwhelming feeling of happiness and sheer joy that would simply envelop me.  Then I saw our daughter, beautiful and intelligent.  She wasn’t afraid to show her love for her parents and would help me in the kitchen making super, yes I was cooking.  She would tell me about her day and we would discuss topics from her classes and issues with her friends.  She was open to me and allowed me to be a part of her life.  This is where time seemed to hop around.  One moment she was a teenager (late high school years) the next she was a toddler.  She was biologically my daughter and even in her early toddler years she had curly brown hair.  I saw her in a cute little dress with ruffles and lace as we were gathering close together to take our picture for our Christmas cards.  Then I saw her at the dinner table in her early teen years introducing her new boyfriend to my husband and me.  I of course knew his parents and respected them so I was comfortable with him.  I trusted her judgment and did not want to pass my own before I had a reason too.  My husband on the other hand, warned him that if he hurt her he would hurt him.  I was out of the room when this happened and so was she but when we came back they both seemed a little tenser.  After dinner, time changed again.  This time we were talking on the phone, my daughter, her husband, my husband, and me.  It was close to the holidays and she would not be coming home for this one.  I was upset but I knew it was for the best.  She was looking to start her own family and I was going to respect that, even though I wished she would reconsider.  My husband took the phone to finish the conversation when I started to cry and held me for a good hour after the call had ended.  Even though we were both much older than when we originally fell in love, our love was still as strong today as it was when we first fell.  His arms still radiated warmth, comfort and safety for me just like they did the first time he wrapped them around me.”

Searching For Stability

Do you ever get that feeling like your focusing on so many things that others sneak by only to rear up and shake you?

That’s what I’m feeling right now.

I have a rather large family (Mom, Step-Dad, Dad, Step-Mom, Older Brother, Younger Step Brother, Younger Half Brother, Younger Half Sister… the holidays are “fun”) and while I’m not super close with them, it surprised me when I talked to my little brother (13 yearrs old) on the phone the other day and I could only marginally recognize his voice.  This is the kid whose diapers I changed when I was 9 years old, who I (under threat of getting grounded) babysat while my Mom and Step-Dad went Christmas present shopping, who I left napping in the living room to go take a bath only to find out, from an irate mother, that he took a nose dive down the basement steps. (The kid is resilient!) 

Another instance:  I got a text from my mom this afternoon that a relative of my Step-Dad is not doing well and may not last the weekend.  All of my memories of this man are really great ones.  He had a great personality and a mind that, despite his age, still thirsted for knowledge.  This kind of caught me off guard because I didn’t even know he was sick!

I could go on but I think you get the picture.

Bottom line, I’m left wondering:    What the F#CK just happened?

I think this stems from two situations.  The first is location.  I live in Chicago and the rest of my family lives elsewhere in Illinois.  Being upwards of 200 miles apart puts a strain on any relationship.

 

The second is my personality.  I’m kind of a weird mix.  I like my alone time but I crave the interpersonal.  I’m the type of person that hates doing something without a friend along for the ride but I can easily sit in my apartment by myself all weekend and write.

Put this together and it begins to make sense.  Then, add in the fact that I wasn’t super close with my family when I went away to school and then moved out altogether and it becomes clearer. 

I don’t visit my family in my home town very often because, while I love them, my life is here (that and its expensive).  Knowing me, if I pined over what was going on down there, I would not be living my life here and that is what is important for me.  Yes, I meant FOR me.  My future is here (at least as far as I can see) in Chicago.  I have a great job, I love where I live, and I’m in the city I’ve dreamt of living in since I first laid eyes on its giant buildings when I was little.

Now, I’m not an altogether heartless brat.  I do text and keep in touch with my mom and chat with my siblings maybe not incredibly often, but often enough.  My Dad and his family live in the ‘burbs so I can more easily visit him and I try to do so at least once a month.  See, I grew up with my Mom and so getting a chance to spend time with my Dad has been great.

Overall, I think this is my stable.  I can’t see everything coming.  I live here and they don’t.  They have lives of their own and I have my life.  I just need to be prepared to be shaken a little every once in a while.  In the same breath though, I should make more of an effort to see my down-state family more often.  In fact, my little brother has a baseball game in one of the ‘burbs coming up this month and I have plans to go watch!  (Can’t Wait!)

So, this shaky, craziness that I seem to find myself in is my new stable.

~Nick

What have I been up to?

What have I been up to?

So, if you didn’t know, I’m not a “full time” writer.  Shocking, right? 

I work full time in the financial services industry (I work in a bank but no, I’m not a teller).  I’m in a special rotational program that allows me to take on a different role in a different department every three months or so with the goal being to build up my knowledge of the organization before “placing” into a permanent role.  That isn’t to say that I’m not a full time employee right now, far from it in fact.  From an organizational perspective I am one of their beloved “FTE”s as we call them.  Not a part-timer, not a contractor, but a full time employee. 

Now, this rotation schedule means that every three months life gets a little hectic as I transition from one team to the next, go through some pretty extensive training for my new role and begin acclimating to my new team.  While this doesn’t require me to work a bunch of overtime, it does leave me pretty exhausted at the end of the day.  Hence why I tend to disappear for a while from time to time.  I do love writing and see it as one of my professions (not a career), but when I get home exhausted from work I can’t always bring myself to yet another computer to put in the writing time.  That and the work I would be doing would pretty much need to be redone at a later time when I’m more alert.

That being said (er... written), I have devoted a lot of my weekends to writing and this weekend is no exception. 

Right now I have two works in progress (WIP).  The first one is the sequel to my first novel, Witch Hunt.  A few working titles right now are:  Between the Heart and the Head, A Witch’s Heart, and The Witchling.  The story itself continues where the first book left off.  Mike has found out he has a nephew, causing him some emotional duress, and he needs to go find and train him.  Forces are, of course, working against him and everything starts to blow up in his face including his relationship with his naturally soul bound partner, Rick.  A lot of the story again pulls in things from Mike’s past that he isn’t quite ready to deal with but he find himself staring them down.  Overall, it comes down to whether Mike trusts not only those around him but himself as he, taking a page out of my book, is his own worst enemy.

The second WIP is a short story I am writing for the Goodreads group M/M Romance’s Love is Always Write event.  The idea was to look at a photo they had posted and the group members were to write prompts that we writers then jumped in and created short stories from.  I chose a really cool black and white photo of a guy playing the guitar and the prompt I chose was a very angst ridden one about a guy longing for the guitarist to notice him.  The story I created... well, I’ll save that for another post.  ;)

ttfn

~Nick

Where do I come up with these ideas?

It’s the age old question that every creative person gets asked.  They all say, “oh that’s an awesome idea... where did it come from?  Where do you come up with these great ideas?”  Then, after you (well, at least me) shrug and say something stupid like, “my imagination?” and they nod and smile at you while thinking “Duh, idiot.”  You begin to wonder: Where do I come up with these ideas?  Well...

The bathroom. 

No, seriously.  Whether I’m doing my hair or singing in the shower I always find some of my most interesting plot twists and ideas come to me in the bathroom.  For instance, I was in the shower the other day singing and thinking about where I’m at with my current work and a really awesome twist came to mind.  So, I finished up my shower while belting out some Michael Buble (much to the dismay of my neighbors) and dried off before rushing to my computer in only a towel to bang out my ideas. 

Another place I find some really good ideas?  In bed. 

And again, I’m being completely honest.

After I’ve crawled into bed and I’m ready to fall asleep I often find myself unable to just close my eyes and drift off so, I get my dreams rolling by making up a story and living it before I drift off into sleeping bliss.  It’s really fun and some of the stories/lives I put myself in are so good I wish they were really mine.  Like the number of times I have been a pro football player’s husband helping him come out of the closet or a famous singer winning more Grammy’s than Adele.  It is just so much fun!  The bad part is that when I’m in bed I drift off before I get a chance to run over to my computer and type anything out.

Ok, so you know the places now but what about the stories?  Where do those come from?  That’s easy:

My imagination. 

;)

~Nick~

Welcome to A Peek Inside!

Hi Everyone!

So, this is new... I feel like I'm welcoming myself to this new (to me at least) world of blogging.

Just a quick intro: I'm Nick Chivers.  I'm a twenty something year old author, singer(in the shower), and dancer(in my kitchen) with an undergraduate degree in accounting that works for a large public financial institution.  Never thought you would hear all of that together in a sentence, did you?  Well, its true.  I love my day job and have a blast just about everyday but I also love coming home and exploring my creative side.  :)

If you are coming here from my Facebook page (Facebook Page), my bio page at Dreamspinner Press (Dreamspinner Press Bio Page), my Twitter (Twitter), or my Goodreads page (Goodreads), you already know that I'm an author.  If you are just learning this for the first time... SURPRISE!  Yes, I'm a published author and no I did not print the pages myself and call it published.  A legitimate publishing company liked my work and decided to take a chance and publish it.  Still don't believe me?  Here, click any of these links and buy it for yourself!
E-book version at Dreamspinner Press
Paperback version at Dreamspinner Press
Paperback version at Amazon.com
E-book version at Amazon.com
Goodreads price comparison

So, now you probably think I started this blog to sell more copies of my book, right?  Wrong. I started this blog to open up and express my thoughts and point of view on a lot of things.  Sure, reading and writing will be my focus but I may surprise you with more topics from time to time.  What can I say, I'm not just one thing and as a reflection of that, this blog will not be just one thing.

Well, for the first post, I think that went pretty well.  Don't you?  :)

TTFN!
~Nick~