People often ask where I get my book ideas from.  Many of them know Stephenie Meyer's story, how she woke up from having a dream about an innocent girl and a vampire boy lying in a  meadow of flowers discussing how badly they needed each other and yet how much he wanted to suck her dry, leaving her but a husk.  These people ask me:  Do you get your ideas from dreams, like Stephenie Meyer does?

Er, no.

Let me tell you about my latest dream, so you can fully appreciate that no I just gave you.

I wake up in this little high rise apartment.  It's dingy white with scratches in the paint and ugly furniture.  It's tiny, and something tells me it's not in the best part of town.  I realize I have to get up to get to work.  Where do I work? I have no idea.  But I have to go there.

I listen to people out in the hallway, busy going places, using the stairwell that must be nearby.  I stare at the lock for a while and wonder if I remembered to lock it.  I figure since I'm still alive and seem to have my stuff, it no longer matters.  I go out the door (unlocking it first, because, yes, I did remember to lock it, apparently), and realize there's an elevator just outside my door.  How convenient!  I use it to go down to what I think is the ground floor.  But it's really like the second floor, so in order to get outside, I have to take an escalator down the rest of the way.

I'm no longer in a residential apartment.  Apparently, I live above a shopping mall.  The elevator has delivered me to the second level of a mall; to go to work, I must take an escalator down to the ground floor.  I walk around this semi-circle with a clear glass balcony surrounding it to get there.  Lots of faceless strangers are busy going places, passing me by, paying me no attention.  I'm invisible to them, some strange, smallish young girl with a messenger bag over her shoulder.

When I'm almost on the escalator, a group of rowdy boys gets on in front of me.  About five of them.  They have a plastic bag with food in it.  Is their plan to eat this food or do something else with it?  I don't know.  But I'm shy, so I just watch them as we go down this very long and quite slow escalator.  They notice me and nudge each other.  I'm not afraid, but I also take pains not to make eye contact.  Some of them are cute, but one more than the others.

Suddenly, one of the not-as-cute ones drops the bag.  It's full of cheddar cheese slices.  We're near the bottom of the escalator and the cheese hits that spot where the stairs disappear into the jaws of death – the ones your mom always warned you not to get your shoelaces caught in or the machine would eat your foot off.  The cheese starts flying around, like it's in an out of control cheese grinder.  Flip, flop, flip, flop!  The cheese is jumping all over the place.

The guys laugh and start rapping.  They make up an impromptu rap melody about losing part of their food.  So inspired by their verve and abandon, I launch into the last line of the rap, using my amazing vocal skills and talent for rhyming on-the-go: “And then he said, pass the cheese, please! Oh no, it's down there by my knees!”  I riff off another couple lines, kicking ass and taking names, and they all just stare at me.

I'm not sure if they're staring because I've just blown their minds with my awesomeness, or because they think I'm an asshole who totally blew their kickass jam.  It doesn't matter much, though, I think; because they're leaping over the bag of flopping cheese slices and so am I.  Our trip on the escalator is over.

I walk around the corner, heading for another one of those semi-circles, thinking I'm on the ground floor, but for some reason, I'm not.  I'm still one level above where I want to be.  I have to go around the railing to get on the stairs so I can go outside … to get to this mystery job I know nothing about, including its location.

The guys follow me.  I'm a target now.  I've opened myself up to their harassment.  I've totally asked for it.  I should have known better than to bust a rhyme!  One of them – the cute one of course – the leader of this cheese gang, calls me out.  I ignore him, lecturing myself silently about how I should have just kept my rhyming skills to myself.  Could I have done better?  Yes, right now, I can think of at least two better rhymes I could have used.  But the ones I selected aren't bad, I tell myself.  Not bad at all.

He grabs me and tells his friends he's going to take me for a spin.  Ha! I think to myself.  He has no idea who he's messing with.  I have a large brother.  He did shit like this to me all the time when I was younger.  I'm ready for him.

He grabs me and starts spinning me around in a circle.  My legs fly out and my messenger bag dangles down between us.

I know he thinks I'm going to scream, but I don't.  I can totally handle the spinning, spinning, spinning, and the tickling of my stomach.  And then I get ready to rock his world.  I do the unthinkable.  His friends are hootin' and hollerin', and I just make it happen.  I start doing fancy moves with my legs.

That's right.  I'm like in the ice capades now, or Dancing With the Stars.  I'm graceful and awesome, even though in this dream I'm a younger version of my real self, chubby thighs and belly and all.  But this guy sees me doing my thing, and he's instantly captivated by my grace and style.  He flips from being the guy who's trying to harass and torture me, to the boy who wants to protect me from the mean gang of cheese droppers who are now staring at him in envy.  He knows his friends are jealous, and he's worried he won't be able to keep me for himself.  Oh, how the tables have turned.

He slows down the spinning and puts me on my feet.  Miraculously, I am not tipsy, punch drunk, or even a tiny bit woozy.  I give him a knowing (adorably cute) smile and start to walk away.  He comes running after me to ask if I'll meet him again.  He wants to spin with me professionally.  He thinks we have a shot at the gold.

I agree.  And the next thing I know, we're at spinning practice, and I'm flying in circles doing the moves that no one can do, flipping and dipping, a veritable centrifugal swan.  And he's in love.  Of course he's in love.  And I'm on top of the world.

And then my kid who's sleeping next to me starts burping because she has a terrible stomach ache.  She wakes me up from my dream, and my spinning Romeo disappears, fading into wisps of dream-smoke.

Dammit.

But!! … I suddenly remember that while I might not be a younger version of myself, spinning in the arms of my One True Love, I am a writer! And this idea is GOLD!  PURE GOLD!  I quickly rehash the entire dream in my mind, grinning from ear to ear in my half-sleep, knowing I've finally found my opus, the literary masterpiece that will have my name on people's lips for the next two decades at least.

And then, as the misty shroud of dreamland completely falls from my consciousness, a process hastened by my daughter's moans of discomfort, I realize.  I am not Stephenie Meyer.  And I do not get good ideas for books from my dreams.  Oh my god, no.  I get tickets to the looney bin, should I dare share them with anyone.

Shhhhh.  Don't tell.

But seriously.  I was so friggin awesome at that spinning thing.