Dream of me, my love, and I'll be with you all night.

It's also about integration: owning up to the parts of yourself, however much you might not like them. In the Real there are so many taboos that people are completely fragmented. That's the joke of it. They cling rigidly to the idea that they are one unique person, while they are busy hiding parts of themselves they can't accept.

But if you stray too far on the side of distance and strictness, you end up hard and unapproachable. So you need to be open to unexpected things and you need to be accessible to those people who are honest and forthright with you, especially if they take risks trying to do what their heart dictates.

There was more, he was sure. He could feel it. Something deeper. More profound. More worthy. More likeable. It was like a bittersweet yearning for something that was so familiar it hurt. Something he'd lost without even knowing he'd lost it. Something elusive that floated just beyond his grasp.

Instead of writing backwards over what had happened, giving structure and meaning to his story, he wrote forwards, slipping into troubling futures.

Alan McCluskey“Despair is an ugly thing when it refuses hope.

Silence is the door to Oran Mor. Close your eyes. Quieten your thoughts. And listen. Listen in particular to the sound of the waves. Let the Great Song sing in you. In an hour I will ring a bell. When you hear it, make a sound that resonates with the waves. Let it flow and develop, calling on all you have heard in the silence.

Organised religion generally gets in the way of spiritual experience.

He felt a deep urge to put some order in this chaos. Leaning against a large standing-stone by the wayside, he drew out his dreambook and began to write.

Writing a story about a place calls that world into existence. Sometimes, as the author, you accompany it for a while. But even as you write, the characters have minds of their own.