I'm happy to be participating in the Blog Tour for G.L. Helm's novel Sometimes in Dreams. Today he has written a post about his novel. On Thursday I'll have my mini-review of the novel.
There is always a question when an author writes a book. “How much is fact and how much is fiction?” In Sometimes in Dreams that is a very hard thing say for sure. All the places and settings in the story are completely real. Some of the settings have been bent around to fit a particular need, but not bent much. Everything in Venice is completely real with the exception of Campo Redemptor, which doesn’t really exist, but Bar Redemptor does exist in a different part of the city. It is much more of a working man’s bar than a restaurant bar I created. The barkeep in my Bar Redemptor is like a hundred real ones all of whom had their own coffee and drink ballet performed behind their bars, and the bar itself was patterned after a bar-restaurant where I really did hang out. It wasn’t in Venice, it was in Aviano and was called Mario’s.
But of course the real question is how much of the love story is real. In that I would have to say none of it. None of the affair between Kit and Daniel is at all real, though I must tell you that Kit was based on a real lady with whom I was quite smitten. The description of her is pretty accurate also. The love story between Daniel and Amanda is very much true as well as many of the happenings therein, including the dangerous assignments and the months of separation. There were obviously no years of despair because there was no affair with Kit. But there have been other times of despair and frustration where the woman after whom Amanda was patterned cared for me in much the same way Amanda cared for Daniel in Sometimes in Dreams.
I have said in other places that most of my work is really just wish fulfillment and that absolutely includes Sometimes in Dreams. That is what is great about being a writer. I can take any situation in which I find myself and pretend it is real, at least for the length of time it takes to write the story. I am always the hero in all my stories, but then again I am also the villain and the heroine and the barkeep and the beggar on the corner. They say, who ever “they” are, that we should always be the hero in our own lives and I try hard to live up to that.
Sometimes in Dreams: Fact or Fiction
But of course the real question is how much of the love story is real. In that I would have to say none of it. None of the affair between Kit and Daniel is at all real, though I must tell you that Kit was based on a real lady with whom I was quite smitten. The description of her is pretty accurate also. The love story between Daniel and Amanda is very much true as well as many of the happenings therein, including the dangerous assignments and the months of separation. There were obviously no years of despair because there was no affair with Kit. But there have been other times of despair and frustration where the woman after whom Amanda was patterned cared for me in much the same way Amanda cared for Daniel in Sometimes in Dreams.
I have said in other places that most of my work is really just wish fulfillment and that absolutely includes Sometimes in Dreams. That is what is great about being a writer. I can take any situation in which I find myself and pretend it is real, at least for the length of time it takes to write the story. I am always the hero in all my stories, but then again I am also the villain and the heroine and the barkeep and the beggar on the corner. They say, who ever “they” are, that we should always be the hero in our own lives and I try hard to live up to that.
Author Bio:
G. L. Helm
is a 'ne'er-do-well scribbler'—novelist, short story writer and poet—who has
tramped around the world for the last forty years thanks to his long suffering
military wife. He has lived in Germany, Spain, and Italy. His epitaph will
read, “He married well.”
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