A nightmare

I am 'ahead' of schedule on chapter seven of my revisions on Courting Apparitions. This pleases me, even though I'm losing hope of how 'worthwhile' this all is. I listen to published writers struggle with selling their second and third books, editors from 'dream publishers' that publish a book and then take a year to say no to the next, not to mention the hundreds of rejections we, the unpublished, receive.

But I push those thoughts from my mind. Right now I'm writing for me. So I have more than one book 'done' to the level I like. To prove my ability and professionalism to myself in order to sell it confidently to others.

I'm working on a nightmare.

Literally.

This was the early draft(s):
She stood at the head of the conference room table, gazing halfheartedly at the view of Lower Manhattan as she noticed her own reflection in the glass. She wore a cranberry red suit. She looked meticulous, bold and surprisingly thin. Twelve people surrounded the table, with Galen opposite her. Galen struck a metallic blade against his palm, over and over. She turned to a television. The red ribbon, the same color as her suit, flashed a message across the bottom of the screen. The market remained steady.
Basilie had orchestrated this hostile corporate takeover with financing from some of the Minerva Pollux’s major investors, leveraging her ability to carve the company into profitable pieces for the highest bidders.
She looked at the men around the table, all men, all men except for her, all gray-haired men with severity in their faces. Each of these men, clients of the firm, had purchased enough stock to join in her creeping tender offer. Between their new influence as shareholders and the proxy fight Basilie’s operatives had stumbled upon, the deal should happen quickly and ruthlessly. While a good, old-fashioned corporate raid didn’t make sense these days, this one did, because Basilie had a client who wanted the core of the business. He just wasn’t willing to pay for the entire corporation. So, Basilie would deliver the piece he wanted. The BlackBerry in Basilie’s pocket rumbled.
She answered it. Her ‘mole’ was on the other end.
“They spun it off.”
“What do you mean?” Basilie replied.
“Your department. Your crown jewel. They saw you coming. They spun it off. We... I mean the board... no longer control it. They set up their own board and IPO.”
The ribbon on the TV screen announced the news. The value of her stock, the stock she bought for the men now gathered around the table, had plummeted as soon as the corporation had spun off its core department.
“God dammit,” Basilie snapped.
Millions lost. The gray-haired men in their navy blue suits rose from the table. They swarmed her, grabbed her, some holding her while others bit her and drank her blood. She pulled, but she couldn’t go anywhere. Everywhere she looked she saw arms. She shivered. She looked at Galen, sitting sentinel at the end of the table. The blade continued swinging up and down, until Basilie wondered: Was that her family sword? Then the heads of the gray-haired men moved away from her, and each of them had eyes like opals.

The writing is far from an example of my best. But that's why it's an early draft.

Now that I have this draft, I'm working on refining what it needs to do:

• The premise of a failed corporate raid is exactly how this character's psyche would process what's been happening in her life. BUT I've changed the intensity of what has happened before this dream, so the content of the dream must clearly foreshadow struggles to come.
• The 'crown jewel' needs to represent the feminine magic Galen has stolen from women over the generations
• The sword must be described
• Should Basilie's family members slowly replace the clients? What about Adelaide? How does she fit?
  
• Should the baby Basilie is carrying factor into this dream. I think so.

• Finally, I scribbled this note on a piece of paper today: "What does the magic say to Z? (Basilie)

Hopefully, by the end of the day, I will have the answers.