.: Entry Seven :.

My name is Elliot Parker.

It happened again. I fell asleep, ok, I was tired and I had a nap, and I had that dream. I wasn’t prepared. I never know when to expect that dream, but there it was.

After climbing the rigging to the bird’s nest and looking out across the sea, being flung back into that room felt warm and safe again. Somehow feeling sea sick and adrenaline fuelled lingered as I wandered around the room. Running my fingers over books that felt so comfortingly familiar that I could curl up in a ball and read story after story until the light faded and the night ended.

It took a while to remember, to focus enough to remember the objects that I wanted, a pen and a notebook. I did it though. One of each. With the summoning of an energy I didn’t quite know, I did it.

It was a little spiral bound jotter notebook, with thin paper. The pen, just the average biro. The ink glistened, it was black but it had an eerie quality. I wrote the only words I could think of. “I am a deliberate creator.” In my tidiest hand-writing, which was a bit of a miracle. I tucked the pen into the spiral and left the open page exposed on the first shelf I am always drawn to. I just needed it to stay there, to not get dislodged. So I changed my mind, I pinned it in place with the little trinket box that I found the thimble and tiny clothes inside.

I didn’t stay in the dream beyond hoping that the notebook would stay in place. I was pulled rather unceremoniously into the waking world. The dream world fading like sand falling through the cracks.

And then it was gone. I felt myself pulled back to reality; kicking, screaming and sullen. I didn’t want to be awake.

The phone buzzing obnoxiously next to my head, that was the rude awakening.

So very uninvited.

My name Is Elliot Parker.

That damn Clover Rayder bitch woke me up. Do not wake me up from a good dream and expect a nice hello. Everyone knows that.

Clover however her call was pretty much pointless. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know. Stan had told me that he told her that he has a crush on her. What I didn’t know, or want to know was her response.

After all, it is none of my business, no matter how much they seem to think it is. Just because I was stupid enough to introduce them. But that is ok, not because I want it to be, but because it has to be.

That is what they don’t tell you. Or perhaps it is what they tell you if you can read between the lines. A perfect life doesn’t exist. But making thousands of mistakes does. And the more mistakes you make you want to ask yourself one question. What did I learn? A better question is, have I made this mistake before? Why did I repeat it? What will stop me from repeating it?

That is when things get hard. And no, that is not a dirty joke.

Clover woke me up to tell me something important to her. It was important for her to tell me, she had what she wanted. A new consistent source of attention. An established crush. Harder to break, trickier to mess with. But still feeble enough that it can be unwound and destroyed if I chose to do it. Though I doubt she understands that that is what I interpreted her excitement as. Her excitement surface bound was “omg he likes me” another one to add to her list. Another poor soul from the tone of her voice and conversation likely to end up on the train tracks of the trail of broken hearts following after her.

I made a mistake. Introducing them. Waking up. Answering the phone. All of it a bit of a giant error.

But that’s ok. Its ok.

I don’t want this to be under my control. I want her to do it of her own reasoning. Not my adjustments, if that’s what we can call them. I want her to choose a decent guy, go for a decent guy and build a solid, healthy relationship. Even if it is with Stan.

My name is Elliot Parker.

I want to go back to sleep. I want to dream that dream again. I want to find out, I have to find out if someone else can get to that room.

But I can’t go to sleep. Can’t or won’t.

My nap has been interrupted and so has that dream. I want to go back and I need to, but there is not enough time left.

There is so much to do and so little time. If it wasn’t for the dreaming and the sleeping and the whole, you know, having a life thing I would be further than I am at the moment. I would have plotted more rather than sat here fantasising. Obsessing with that damn room. I mean, a dream is just a dream, right? Nothing more? But I just have the feeling that is wrong.

I can’t even begin to find a way to prove what I know.

Somehow, I know that Clover is going to end up with Stan, maybe not right away, but I know it. Somehow it just feels like, she might just listen to what I have said and give him a decent chance. She might. I hope she does. He is sweet and kind. She could do with just having the one boy who treats her well and shows her how true affection, love and care, she should know what that is like. Stan could give her that. I want that for her. The fairy story that she wants more than anything. Her prince charming. He could do that. He could be that, for her.

The pre-order link is available now… Due to release 14th January!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MG21QLX

.: Entry Six :.

My name is Elliot Parker and I am a bitch.

It is true. So the whole avoiding Clover plan. That failed. I saw her. I hate her, kind of, I wish I really hated her, it’s hard. He likes her. Of course he does. I am the girl who gets friend zoned and she is the girl that gets the guys. The damsel in distress. And I am the one that is dependable, the one that looks after everyone else. I don’t know why I am letting this bother me. I am used to it. The girl who is the kooky, funny friend.

I am annoyed because he has genuine feelings for her, though he calls it a crush, and she is absorbing attention from other guys like she is a sponge. A decent guy and he’s still not her main focus. She goes to me to give it a shot with him even though we all know it’s her he wants and he has said as much. It’s frustrating. I have never set her up to fail. But it seems to be fun for her to set everyone else up to fail. The other guys she’s talking to but not really interested in, the ones she is leading on even though she “doesn’t really want a relationship with them”. Like seriously! I find a decent guy, she miraculously hits it off with him and becomes the guy she gets the most attention from that has a crush on her that is a good guy. I mean come on. Give a girl a break. Not all of us can play the sweet little damsel routine, some of us know how to survive in this world for real, without using it as a reason to be a victim of circumstance.

ARGH! It is so infuriating.

Look I am sorry. I am an awful friend. I am just… it’s annoying. She makes a big old show of it and rubs it in my face all the damn time… like really? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? Making a show of talking to him? And other guys hounding you… that’s like so classy…

My name is Elliot Parker, the queen of the friend zone.

I need to not be mad about the friend zone. I mean, I am, but I don’t have to be. They say great relationships can come from close friends. And with he who shall not be named, the friendship was just as on fire as the electricity and chemistry between us. That’s fine. I want that feeling again. That being drawn to someone feeling. The magnetism.

Clover seems to have some kind of magnetism. But her mind, that’s an easy to fuck with toy. It is. Just say things and the right way and you know you have cracked her by the smile that gives her away.

My super power? I read people like a book. Because I am a reader. Because I am a writer. Because I have no choice, I am a deliberate creator. How do you create without knowing the tools you have at your disposal? The answer? Messily. Most people, their intuition is a little voice or a slight suggestion. Mine might as well hold a megaphone to my ear and be screaming at me. That’s how this all began really. My intuition got louder. Harder to ignore. But when I began to listen, I was in the right place at the right time most of the time. I started to see the things that I needed to see. The world sort of yielded more opportunities to learn a bit more each time. The more I listened the clearer the intuition was. Before long, that was all I followed, it became almost an animal instinct, a drive to do a certain thing at a certain moment. It can be pretty hard to ignore; it feels unbearable to ignore. It feels like a physical pain when I ignore a tiny notion that seemingly would have no value, no use.

You see that same intuition, that’s telling me that Clover is playing a game. She is dangling the situation on a stick to get a response. To get a reaction. To find a reason to look like a victim, again. To have something she can use to garner attention.

That is the real reason I find it so irritating, because I know what it is she really wants. And I don’t want to give her what she wants anymore.

My name is Elliot parker, and I am not the girl I used to be.

For a long time, I caved in and gave people what they wanted from me. When I started saying “no”, people didn’t like the change. I had become someone else. My existence didn’t serve them anymore. It took a long time for that “no” to take effect. It took a long time to draw power from that first “no”. It is not a badge of honour. It is not a badge of pride. It is the first step, the first start to getting control of my life, to gaining control of myself.

People have two reactions to something they don’t understand; get rid of it, or, how do I use it and control it. Once that first no started relinquishing me from being controlled. That is when things became messy. Truly, messy. See all the times I had been lead to believe that I wasn’t good enough, that I had no potential. They were being proved wrong. All those words, that conditioning, the chains were being broken, because step by step and moment by moment I began to unlock what the conditioning had blocked me from. My natural abilities, my natural skills and talents.

Unlocking them one by one made the voice of intuition louder, my conscience stronger. And my understanding of all that I knew of the world faltered as I unlearned everything and began to learn who and what I really am.

.: Entry Five :.

My name might just happen to be Elliot Parker.

I might just be in a good mood… I might have had that dream again. Ok, yeah, I am even irritating myself.

But hey. I had that dream again!

I love that room. Being there, it changes everything.

The smell of the old books. I tried Peter Pan’s thimble on… it was shiny and cold but it was pretty. I made it to the bird’s nest this time. It was so high up I almost forgot to breathe. Coming back to the room, it was warmer, that is for sure. The books have stayed more in focus and sharper since the last time. The room still smells like books. I wanted to sit down this time, but I couldn’t quite envision what I wanted to sit on. So I sat on the floor. Still that was new it was a change. The floor was rough and dusty but I found a little corner and propped myself against a bookshelf or two and ran my fingers down the spines of the books nearby. Some looked as though they had never been opened, they looked like they should never be opened. Others looked so well worn that you could just tell they had been read and loved so many times. I tried to picture who else read these books. If anyone else could read these books. If anyone else could use my room here in this world. It was mine, but sometimes things seemed to have been moved just slightly, a little more to the left or right of where I thought I had put them before. Of course, this room once it appeared, it was never tidy. So perhaps it was just what happens when the books come through the floor. Perhaps that’s just where they jiggle and land.

It felt a bit silly to be hopeful that someone else might have been here and experienced some of the amazing things that could and do happen in this room. The other stories that are in here. Do I really share this space, my space with anyone? Probably not. But it didn’t exactly feel good that someone else probably could, if they really wanted to, find themselves in this place. This is my private place. The idea, however hopeful, still felt violating.

My name is Elliot Parker. And after all, this is my dream. This room, these stories, and challenges, they are mine!

So what if I am possessive? It’s my secret place that I have never seen but I know this place it has to be real. Dreams don’t feel this tangible, not really. Dreams don’t let you change things.

That’s it! That is how I might know if I share the room. I could change something. I need something next time I have this dream again. I need a, something, if I could create a note book and pen, I could write something. But what? What can I possibly write?

Dreams aren’t meant to be changed it might not work.

But it will work. It will work because I want it to.

If I can climb the rigging on that ship swinging back and forth with the waves, if I can get to the top and reach that damn bird’s nest… I can change something in this room. I can do something in this room. Probably just something small. If I keep changing it, even incrementally I can get more control, more strength, I can do more things.

I already changed something in the real world from the empowerment I garnered here. I can do something in this dream from the empowerment I garnered and I can change something again and get more control.

It can be done.

I will do it.

I am so tired. But sleep, that is something that will have to wait.

I am Elliot Parker, I had a dream again. And now, I want to change it.

The clothes, that felt easy. It felt deliberate. What I choose has to be deliberate. It has to be what I want. On more than one scale. It has to spread through every thought to become a conscious choice, a conscious thought. A conscious thought in an unconscious world. Is that even possible? It shouldn’t be. But I am the girl. I am the girl and I love the impossible-ness that I am. If I can do anything change anything, maybe I can find out what this room is. If someone else goes there. If they do, I can find out who they are, in the waking world. If someone else shares that space, maybe just maybe I could find a way to bring someone else into that world.

I did it before, by accident through anxiety. But it is not possible for them to be aware of what this is if they even know or remember. I wouldn’t want to ask anyway. It’s not the kind of thing you can ask someone that you don’t get on with that you just resigned your job with. That’s not cool.

But what is cool is that I changed it. If I can harness whatever focus brought the change.

That’s it, it’s the change itself. I keep thinking about the change and the cause, the anxiety. But it’s the change it made to me, how it made me feel. That empowerment, it wasn’t a fleeting emotion. It lasted. It lasted through waking up, it provided the courage and empowerment to make a choice for my own self. It touched the real world. It changed me, now this dream can change to. I can take control of it, surely just on the premise that I know it can be done? That should be how it works right? If I follow my instinct, it will help me do what I want to do. What I need to do. What I must do to find out how the hell this all works.

.: Entry Four :.

My name is Elliot Parker.

I am now, unemployed. So I did it. I quit my job. I had to. It was killing me, emotionally and physically.

I have experienced many forms of extreme stress. But this was different. This was the kind of stress that drains your body until you feel like a dead weight from dawn till dusk. This was the kind of stress that made you feel emotionally crippled and drained and so full of anxiety that it slipped into your dreams every night and ate you up there too. This was the kind of stress that pushed my mental health to its limits and sent me back to my counsellor.

People call me strong. This place, it made me feel weak. I have survived so much already, so much more than I should have. I don’t know how, but I lost my whole-ness. I felt less than half alive. I feel less than half alive still. Though that has more to do with the incomprehensible pain that is plaguing every moment. See in the real world. I have damaged a muscle or two. I am recovering, but it is slow progress. But in the world that matters to me, basically any other world but this. I am fine and I am healthy.

That’s the thing, about being a deliberate creator, you are always moving towards your desires. I want to be fine, I want to be healthy. So that is what I am, inside.

I resigned, I felt backed into a corner, it was my real power play. Stay and fight for something that was eating my soul alive. Or choose my health and happiness. Not all of my family understood that choice. Not all of my friends did either. I tried my best. And I think, on both sides of the coin, their side and mine, we tried to make it work. But the fit changed because people change and grow.

That’s the thing I have talked about with my counsellor. Growth. I am not the person I was this time last year. I learned the power my thoughts have, and now, I try to choose them wisely. See I know that there is something amazing and wonderful coming. Whether it is him, he who should not be named, or whether it is a break through when it comes to writing. Something impossibly awesome is coming.

See ever the optimist right?

My name is Elliot Parker. I am strong.

I am choosing all these better feeling thoughts. Where I was and where I am screams change. It screams growth. I used to live in my own pain, my focus was the pain and the hurt, and the fresh heartbreak. But now I am thankful for all that it taught me when I thought I couldn’t survive, because look at what happened. I survived. I changed. I have grown and changed so quickly that the emotional distance from the past to now, it feels like a chasm. I can’t go back; it can’t reach me. So yeah, I changed. I grew quickly and the mould that I used to fit into that they needed, I can no longer fit or fill that. That’s ok. I appreciate them for the change that they helped bring about.

I truly appreciate the dreams that it helped foster because all of this really did make one thing very clear to me. My health and my happiness are a priority. I am a priority. It is ok for me to be the priority.

My name is Elliot Parker, today I changed my life.

It’s not an exaggeration. One change fosters another, and that is where the next change appeared. My focus. I did something I haven’t been able to do in so long. I sat and read a book, the whole of my conscious day. I read a book, and I let myself enjoy it. No analysis. I told myself off for guessing the plot because I just wanted to read it and enjoy it. Just like I used to. Before this became my life. Before the power of suggestion, before the power of deliberate creation took over my life.

Today I suggested to the universe, not anything particular, just this one phrase “today, I want a good, happy energy to flow through me. I want a day of ease and peace.” Sure it had its moments. But as a whole it was delivered. Only the right interruptions made it through.

Ok, so I can’t call Jonas an interruption, unless I add a word. Jonas is a welcome interruption. While he may be a fountain of wisdom, he is also a fountain of humour and laughter. When I am told I did something good or great by him it honestly makes my day, because I know he means it sincerely. With some people, you can just tell. Want to know a secret? Jonas, he is an inspiration. Because he is an inspiration, he might, well actually he does appear in my stories. He can be pretty easy to spot if you know who you are looking for. And with the story I am planning… Jonas, he is a great curveball to change the direction and flow of the story.

My name is Elliot Parker.

I am addicted to stories, in particular, this damn book I’m reading. It’s so hard not to say “I know what’s going to happen, the plot is obvious”. But that is the problem I can say that about life. That is why I have been sort of, kind of, maybe, just a little bit, avoiding Clover. I’m sorry. I really am. But I know she is happy, she is getting on with a really good guy. And that is the problem. I am doing my best to resist spite. Proximity and exposure to Clover will not help me remain in control of my words. It will not help me create something good or great. It will not help me change the world in the right way.

.: Entry Three :.

My name is Elliot Parker. I had the dream, again.

It always happens the same, no matter where I am, what I am doing. I can be pulled away without my knowing. At first I didn’t understand.

I appeared in the room, dusty, crumbling, bare. Exposed brick work, floorboards. It looked unassuming, uninviting and downright shabby. Then it happens, the dust of the brick sort of crumbles to the floor. The floor ripples and rumbles and crumbles away. The wood breaks apart. Then they shoot up. Old, antique, battered bookshelves. They pop up from the tears in the floor. And there they are. Volumes and volumes of stories. Some have matching leather bound covers. Others, like this one have yellowed pages and faded covers, bent spines. They are loved.

When this first started, I would open a cover and begin to read the story, when I did that, I got so immersed, literally. I would be pulled into the story and, Robin’s he was the first. I had to climb his ships rigging to go up to the bird’s nest. I HATE HEIGHTS. But I got pulled back out before I completed his little challenge. Turns out I was just simply a stow away in his story. There are worse things to be.

Have you ever been hated by an author or writer? A little tip and guidance, never wrong a writer, we get our revenge in print. I am just as guilty. There are people in my stories I base on people I know or have met. Oh boy do I love hurting those characters.

ANYWAY… moving swiftly on.

My own anxiety slipped into this dream once. I was having lots of problems with work. A boss that I have a particular issue with burst through the door and started to yell at me. I kept telling myself that this is a dream. I can change a dream, surely I can? I know most people can’t but I can because I am me and I am strong. I can do this. I did it. I told her to leave, suddenly my comfortable sleepwear (leggings and a vest top) disintegrated and transformed. I had black jeggings on, a black lace vest top and black crop top underneath so a tiny hint of my tattoo was visible, and my favourite biker jacket. I told her to leave and the look on her face was priceless. She wanted to fight me. My own anxiety and agitation wanted to fight back and cripple me in a dream. I didn’t want it to. I didn’t want it to win. Not again. When she left I noticed that the room was becoming clearer. More in focus.

The print of the title in the books was clearer, a little less soft on the edges. The leather bound books, the ones gilded in gold, the embossing, it became more tangible. The whole of the room had more texture. It had a smell. The air had the smell. That old book smell. There was a painting on the wall. For now, it just looked like the sea. But that was fine. The dream had become more real.

But this was new. I had more control. I was in control. I wanted a good dream, here it was. I had asked for a good dream before I fell asleep. And now, my dream was becoming clearer. I was pushing it forward, pushing the dream to progress to grow more. This change, the bleeding of my real life anxiety into my special place, my happy place this was new. And it had to mean something. Perhaps the intention I had entering my sleeping world was growing. Perhaps the inclination and the strength I have been summoning wasn’t just an “in the dream world” kind of thing. This was an adventure that I was asking for. This was a world that I had control in when I shouldn’t. I was breaking the rules.

That is when the phrase “you are a deliberate creator” began to make sense. I had heard it before. I had been told it before. I had never understood. But here I was in this dream, it had been the same dream for so long that it was a reassuring place, an untouchable safe place for me to just relax and not have to really worry or think. And I had changed it. Something I had never been able to do, I had never been able to turn right instead of left while climbing up the rigging which was something I was curious about, trying more than once if I could do it, just once. But here, I changed something big. I had done something big. I had created the change and then changed it again. I could alter the unalterable. I had done yet another impossible thing. First I had survived in the real world, more than once, something that was meant to but could have destroyed me.

My name is Elliot Parker, and I love to do the impossible.

The dream sort of dissolved while I made sense of it and came back into the waking world. I wanted to cling onto the dream refusing to open my eyes and face the day.

Admittedly, I didn’t get out of bed until the urge to pee was crippling. I kept trying to go back to the dream, but it had slipped through my fingers like sand.

But it was the deciding factor, aside from this dream, I have had nightmares, dreams, whatever they can be called; I have had full blown night terrors about work for so long that I am struggling to remember life without dreaming about work. I am a writer, plagued by dreams about a job that is most certainly not writing. Before this job, I had dreams about my stories, about my characters. Since that job, nothing but terrors of work full of anxiety. It has to stop.