When you dream of being murdered and waking up dead, you can imagine it's not exactly the nicest experience you'd wish to remember.

That's exactly what happened to me. I write from dreams, and these can be the most graphical, real and sometimes very disturbing experiences, but I wouldn't want to change them for the world as they've helped me write my first two novels, and now my third which I'm currently working on.

My imagination (which has always been overactive) manifests itself in many ways and I find myself exploring worlds I never would have experienced in the real world - such as being dead, for example.

That brings me back to Nightswallow, my latest release. I can still feel the coldness, the dead feeling that completely took over me as I woke pressed against the cold wall of my apartment, my eyes staring wide open into nothingness. I felt it as real as anyone has ever felt death and lived.

I went through all of Night's (my main characters) emotions, the detachment, the piercing pain and the confused mixed memories. That's why Nightswallow is different from other books of the supernatural/horror genre; it's somehow more real (at least to me).

It's not a new thing for me; my first book, Escaping Dreams, was also written from various dreams, including 'Beth's Dream' which has its own chapter in the book.

I was able to weave the story around these dreams, and in a way they guided me to write. I try to fill as much beauty in the most unexpected places in my books, and it all stems from dreams.

There's a lot of darkness in my books, but that seems to make it all the more special when the light shines through; sometimes you have to get through all the dark stuff before you find the light, and that's another theme of Escaping Dreams.

My character Night is yet to find her light, but all the time it is there in front of her.

I embrace my dark side, and accept it - surely that's the most constructive thing I can possibly do. Everyone has a dark side, whether it shows up in dreams, desires, fantasy, reality... the list is endless. And if you don't accept that its there, it can perhaps manifest itself in other - less productive - ways.

The dreams I have guide me to write the stories and therefore is a kind of therapy for me, if you will. And if you don't believe in therapy, it gives me something to work for, to strive for, to believe in.

And I'll probably keep it up until I die.