Dreams, for the most part, are a wonderful way to escape from our daily lives. They are filled with fun and interesting tidbits and author Trish McCallan found out that they can sometimes come true.
Trish, author of FORGED IN FIRE, stops by today on her Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Publicity Tour to talk about ‘a dream within a dream’ she had.
When I was 10 years old I dreamed an event that came true.
It was Sunday, and my mom and dad had collected us kids and marched us outside to weed. I hated weeding, so there I was, bitching and whining and I said to my mom, “Why are we even doing this? Janie and Bruce will be here any minute.” Mom gave me this odd look and asked “What are you talking about? We haven’t seen Janie and Bruce in years. If they were in town, they would have called.” (Janie and Bruce were my mom’s step-sister and step brother-in-law. They’d moved down to Oregon years earlier, but would visit whenever they hit town.)
Without thinking, I told her “Bruce’s Mom is in the hospital. They left during the middle of the night and arrived in town this morning. But Bruce’s mom is okay now, so they’re coming by for a visit before heading home and we’ll all go to Abby’s Pizza for lunch.” Of course my mom asked where I’d come up with this news and I suddenly realized I’d dreamed it the night before. Yeah, weird—we all had a good laugh and got down to weeding.
An hour later Janie and Bruce showed up. Yep, Bruce’s mother had been admitted to the hospital on a suspected heart attack, which turned out to be indigestion, and because Janie was pregnant and craving pizza, guess where we headed for lunch?
This incident was a family favorite for years, but by the time I entered college we’d pretty much forgotten about it. At least until it happened again. This time I was in my university dorm room and my mom called. While I was on the phone with her, I asked how Yuki was doing.
Yuki was a Japanese exchange student staying with my parents. My mom said Yuki was doing great, adjusting really well. And I said “No, I mean is he out of the hospital yet? Did he recover from the bee stings?” And she’s like what are you talking about. And I said “The bee stings. From that hike his science class took up to Lake Wenatchee.”
There was this long pause and my mom said “Yuki just told me about that hike five minutes ago, he hasn’t even gone on it yet. It’s this weekend. He ends up in the hospital?” And I suddenly realized I’d dreamed about Yuki getting stung. In the dream the boys he was hanging out with were throwing rocks at this old hollow tree, and a swarm of bees came after them.
My mom didn’t let him go on the hike, which Yuki was grateful for the following Monday when he got to school and discovered all the kids that had gone on the hike had sustained multiple bee stings. Yuki, by the way, was allergic to bee venom. If he’d been stung as many times as the other kids, it could have killed him.
I’ve never dreamed another event, but I’ve wondered what I would do if I dreamed something terrible was going to happen—something horrible, like a plane crash or a bomb. If I dreamed something terrible, and the dream started coming true, would I try to stop it from happening? Would I try to warn the people involved? If no one believed me, how far would I go to prevent the tragedy?
This is the theme I explore in Forged in Fire. Beth, the heroine, has a horrible dream—a nightmare in which an airplane is hijacked and the terrorists slaughter everyone on board. Beth’s not psychic. She’s never had a dream that came true. She doesn’t even believe in ESP or premonitions. So like any stable, rational person she dismisses the dream. But when events in her nightmare start coming true, she has to make a choice—to trust her instincts and the knowledge that her dream is actually happening, which means hundreds of people are about to die. Or to walk away without doing anything. Beth chooses to try to stop it and is drawn into the nightmare herself.
The really weird thing is how this scenario came to me. Because get this, I dreamed it. Yep, I had this incredibly vivid dream where this blonde woman awakes from this terrible nightmare and through the course of the morning realizes that events in her dream are coming true. I dreamed that she headed to the flight’s departure gate to see if she recognized any of the passengers, and almost fainted when she saw the hero and his friends waiting to board.
Yep, I dreamed the opening to FORGED IN FIRE.
A dream, within a dream. How weird is that?
Trish, thanks so much for guest blogging today. I love how the opening came to you. The fact that 2 of your dreams have come true is amazing and I can’t image what I would do if my dreams started coming true.
Trish has been writing for as long as she can remember. In grade school she wrote children’s stories, illustrated them with crayons and bound the sheets together with pencil-punched holes and red yarn. She used to sell these masterpieces at her lemonade stand for a nickel a book. Surprisingly, people actually bought them. Like, all of them. Every night she’d write a new batch for her basket.
As she got older her interest shifted to boys and horses. The focus of her literary masterpieces followed this shift. Her first full length novel was written in seventh grade and featured a girl, a horse and a boy. At the end of the book the teenage heroine rode off into the sunset . . . with the horse.
These days she sticks to romantic suspense with hot alpha heroes and roller-coaster plots. Since she is a fan of all things bizarre, paranormal elements always find a way into her fiction. Her current release, FORGED IN FIRE, was the result of a Black Dagger Brotherhood reading binge, a cold, a bottle of Nyquil and a vivid dream.
For more on Trish and her writing, visit her at www.trishmccallan.com, stop by her blog, and find her on Twitter and Facebook.
Here’s a synopsis of FORGED IN FIRE:
Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before.
Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before.
Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm.
As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.
Nominated For 2011’s Best Paranormal Romance by The Romance Review! --- “Forged In Fire is a smoking hot adventure with an irresistible alpha hero. Danger, action, suspense, and a steamy romance make a story that’s impossible to put down!” –Patti O’Shea, National Bestselling Author of Through a Crimson Veil
Have you ever had a dream come true? Thanks for stopping by today.
