I’ve been itchin’ to post this for ya’ll. It has to be one of my favorite stops along Marigny Street’s blog tour. (Oh, did I forget to mention Marigny Street is on another blog tour? It is! Quite exiting, I know!) I was asked to write a post about my belief in dreams, and whether or not I had a dream about any of my books. My awesome author friend, Lori L. Clark (Remember her?), was gracious enough to have me on her blog.  This has been one of my favorite blog posts yet, because it’s a subject I hold dear to my heart. I hope you enjoy!

xoxo

Dreams

I have to admit, I was pretty excited when Lori asked me to discuss my beliefs in dreams, and if any of my books were based on a dream I had. Dreams are a major part of the storyline in Marigny Street.

Marigny Street explores the possibility of dreams being more than what you do while you sleep. It explores dreams being your connection to the transcending in spirit.

Do I believe that? Before I answer, let me explain.

I didn’t realize how strong my belief was in dreams, until I wrote Marigny Street. I grew up in New Orleans, in a home filled with spiritual, eccentric people who taught me to believe in what the world would call impossible. We were taught that dreams could lead you, they could warn you, and they could protect you. If you believed in what they were trying to tell you—it could make a world of difference.

The night I had imagined Gabriel and his Evangeline, I felt as though I was in that place between sleep and awake. And those two gorgeous characters seemed to float toward me and I was compelled, and inflicted with an insatiable curiosity, to tell their story. I remember feeling this overwhelming desire to be inside their dreams. In my mind, in my heart, that’s where they exist; in some faraway but close place, in a gorgeous, lyrical dream. They exist in a place where if you just close your eyes and let go—there they’ll be.

And they were. And still are.

Marigny Street is living proof of that. As soon as Eva and Gabriel’s story started to spill, the flow just brought me to so many unexpected places. Places that I hadn’t been since I was a child. A time and a place where anything is possible, and those “imaginary” things you would have defended were real as a kid, but as you got older somehow lost their magic, were suddenly real to me again. Magic was real to me.

Before we go any further—we need to pause here.

Every word has meaning. There are countless numbers of words, just hanging out in the dictionary, waiting to be discovered and used. But there are times I give meaning to words because of how they make me feel. (Have you ever just loved a word? And use it the way you felt it should be used?) Well, this is what magic means to me. This is how the word magic makes me feel.

Floating fireflies.Honeysuckle that smells so sweet drifting in the summer air, it almost smells like it’s being stewed in a pot.Meeting someone in your dream that you fall in love with before you’ve met him or her in this reality.That feeling you get when you believe for just a second that the stars were created just for you. Call it what you want—I won’t stop you. But I call it magic.

Now, back to my original point. I rediscovered all those beliefs again through Eva. I found myself connecting and remembering, while I lived their story. And I’m not sure if I ever really forgot what I believed in—I had just believed in it for so long, it became second nature to me. After Marigny Street was completed, I just had the pleasure of evaluating all those beliefs.

I often think the reason Evangeline and Gabriel sought me out was because I could bring truth to their story. I could explain their unexplainable without stealing too much of the magic. Even though I had no idea where they were headed, I somehow understood the meaning behind the words.

When a child sees a firefly, for instance, their first instinct is not to demand to know how, or even why, their first instinct is to admire. To be in awe at something that doesn’t quite make sense, but perhaps is just pleasing, beautiful to the eye. The curiosity to figure out how something works usually comes later, after the awe has worn off. And that, more than usual, is when we become adults.

So, yes, I believe in dreams. I believe in the transcending in spirit. I believe we all have the power to believe in the unexplainable and not ask why. I believe we all have hidden desires, feelings, and experiences just waiting for us, but we are too clouded by hardships, heartache, life in general, to truly find them while we’re awake.

Yes, I believe in all these things. And I always will.

I never felt like I was writing one story with Marigny Street. There were always two stories being told. The one I was writing, and the one behind the words. Depending on beliefs, on what readers will allow themselves to believe to be true, on how far they are willing to stretch their boundaries, will be their Marigny Street experience.

I’ve never had a dream about any of my books. But I’ve come to believe, and maybe this is just my sideways sort- of thinking, that I don’t need to dream my stories—they come floating to me in those places between sleep and awake. The stories I write are my dreams, and somehow, I get to share them with the world.

I’m not sure if any dream of mine could beat that. But I’m willing to believe.

Just an ounce of belief can change your world. It can change your perception. And that can change everything.