Well, I finished a short story based on that dream I had. I'm calling it "The Two Front Ones," and we'll see if it can do anything on the market.

In the meanwhile, I've started an intriguing project with a co-worker. I've always wanted to collaborate with someone on a novel. I always thought it would be a terrific way to forge a great friendship. On the other hand, I suppose it could also end up being a way to make a lifelong enemy. But I try to be a glass half-full sort of guy.

The particular story will be about zombies and is set in the 1940s and 50s in Colorado. It's my co-worker's idea. He hasn't done a lot of writing in his life, it seems, but from the early draft of a first chapter and from just hanging out with him a bit, I can tell he's a very good storyteller. Plus it runs in his family, since his grandfather had both fiction and non-fiction books published by Random House, Avon, and a host of other large presses.  I can't wait to see where this project goes. In the meanwhile I'm working on two other novels as well. One's going into its third draft, the other its second. More on those later . . . 

I work two jobs, one as a full-time reference librarian, and another as a contract librarian for an online virtual reference service called AskColorado. The AskColorado gig has me getting up around 5:30AM, and I usually staff it for a couple of hours a day, then head on to my regular job. On Mondays and Thursdays, however, I don't have to be into work until noon, so I usually go back to bed after doing my AskColorado shift and get a few more hours of sleep, usually from 7-9AM.

What's intriguing to me is how vivid my dreams are during these morning naps, and how much I can remember about them. I know everyone dreams during the night, but I honestly can't remember one nightly dream in months. When I sleep from 7-9AM, though, I have many vivid and powerful dreams which I seem to remember in detail. Many of these have inspired short stories, some of which have been published.

This morning's dream is going to get worked into a short story. In the dream, I'm the son of a famous scientist/dentist. My father always cleaned my teeth for me as a boy. Or so I thought. It turns out he was etching strangely brilliant scientific equations into the enamel of my teeth using some sort of super-advanced laser. The equations can only be read with something like an electron microscope. In the dream, my father has died, and I get into an accident that knocks out one of my teeth. Unfortunately, the tooth falls into the hands of a Bad Guy, who studies the tooth and realizes there's something engraved on it. After that, I end up being chased by roughly 1,000 people who all want to play Tooth Fairy.

I woke up before my unconscious mind could do all my work for me, but there's nothing sweeter than going to bed and waking up with a short story premise. Now to the writing . . .