Day 7: Total word count for first week - 12,435

Today I've surprised even me. I looked at the word count total for the week, and I've hit 12,435. That is a new record! I'm right on track to finishing 50,000 words. Now, just to keep the motivation up for 3 more weeks :)

A new twist in the novel - there are just so many things popping up out of the blue - is the concept of death, healing and rebirth, and how that fits in with dreaming. Originally I had this guy stuck in a cave with some old lady, and suddenly the old lady decided to reveal that it was really a tomb. Then a whole discussion on death and rebirth came up. I kept having images in my head of the West Kennett Long Barrow, and what I would imagine would happen if someone walked through the red 'Otherworld' door (it's a red stone, as opposed to the blue and gray stone everywhere else). I had visited the long barrow while I was at Avebury, UK, and it's definitely an experience.

The thing about the long barrow is that archaeologists believe it was a tomb, and that the red door led to the underworld. When I walked around in there, I didn't get a sense of that. It felt like a healing area. The death aspect seemed to be more around the idea that it was a waiting area, a preparation place. However there was definitely a healing feel, much like the idea of a hospital where patients come to be healed and sometimes they do die.

I guess that death, true healing and dreams are all intertwined. They all exist on a different frequency or level of understanding. Healing is not just what cures we come up with, but what we believe and feel. Death is just a transition. The realm of dreams is a place where we can create and experience anything, a place that holds death and healing in its black nothingness while they wait to become.