House in NO, cont'd

For those of you playing along at home...

( The beginning )

Also, I had a dream about Odin and carnies last night that wants to be a story. The problem with dream stories is that I really love them, and can't figure them out.

They're just waiting on a train to take them home

This is what happened the first time I tried to write that vampire story--I dreamed about Odin and he totally hijacked it. So now I'm trying to combine the original Odin/Salem/ghost train story with this dream about carnies. Good times, good times.

Apparently Freya is still running around in my world, too.

I blame this dream partly on an Everlast song, a short story I read years ago in a Catfantastic anthology (it starred Odin and Freya as carnies, but the author confused Freya with Frigg, turned Odin into a putz, and it generally sucked), E. Catherine Tobler's very good story up at SciFiction, and whatever else goes on in my brain while I sleep. It'd be nice if I could put it together in a way that works.

The dead don't get no vacation

As I suspected, the train story is evil. Eeeeeevil. Pretty pictures...

The train rolled out of the badlands just before midnight. The track was old, abandoned, started by a hopeful town before the Texas & Pacific jilted her and broke her heart. Littered with debris now, ties old and rotten or missing, but it was enough for this train.

Her cars were black and tarnished silver, spotted with rust; they shimmered in the moonlight. Steam trailed behind her like the breath of ghosts. Her bell rang cracked and sour, and when her whistle blew at night sleepers tossed and dreamed.

...but no actual storyness.

This happened to me with Salem's first story, but more so. I had a good beginning, and I knew everything that happened, but that personal character connection of matteringness wasn't there. I don't know what she wants most in the world, so I can't offer it to her or take it away. Argh. Celia the fishgirl put out for me. Nathan put out for me. But not Salem.

(Amalia from the Rising Sun story also isn't putting out, which is why that one's not going anywhere.)

Bastards. It's almost enough to drive me back to the arms of my novels.