I know you've all heard - not just here, but other places - writing is not for the faint of heart.

A new horror has popped up, one even I hadn't yet encountered. I woke up Sunday morning in a cold sweat from a nightmare:

Someone was hacking into my laptop, into my latest WIP (Work in Progress), and ... killing off my characters. In my dream, this atrocity was going on not only in my word processor, but that of a critique friend.

We stood by in morbid fascination as each night we'd leave the characters happily buzzing through their flawless plots, only to discover each morning - something horribly wrong. Someone had slithered into our carefully created literary universes and rewrote scenes to kill off our characters. The mayhem was endless - runaway buses, crazed serial killers, one even choked on a straw.

We decided we had to act. We'd take turns staying up each night. Two laptops glowed side by side, a tense writer sat nearby, ready to pounce on the intruder. For four nights we did this. No one showed up, nothing changed.

Cool. We showed him (er, her?).

There was one problem, though. When we stayed up all night lying in wait for the intruder (s??), we were so exhausted the next day, we couldn't WRITE. Yipes!

Not sure what my subconscious is trying to tell me with all this angst, but when I find out, you'll be the first to know.

It might have been the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers panel discussion I attended Saturday in Lakewood. A group of writers shared their experiences with Indie Publishing, and, believe it or not, it's getting even scarier out there. Now not only do we have to make this stuff up, we have to edit, design the cover and market. Still trying to digest all the info.

But for now, gotta go check to see if my characters are all still safe and sound