Better Than Dead

Random quote of the day:

 

“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.”

—attributed to Douglas Everett

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

“I’d ever dreamed before…”

I dreamed about my close personal friend, Johnny Depp.* Although we’d been very close for quite some time, he started holding me at arms’ length. Not only that, he implied to anyone who inquired that we’d never been close. He’d only been humoring/being kind to me/I was delusional. This hurt quite a lot because he and I both knew this wasn’t so.

My friend, Lisa, told me, “You know what he’s like. He’s really close with someone for awhile, then he gets restless and moves on.” I know it was Lisa because it felt like her, but she only ever appeared in shadow.

“I know, you’re right,” I said. “Still hurts.”

Now, if we look at this in a Jungian light, I myself am everyone who appears in this dream (sorry, Lisa). So, perhaps a part of myself has gotten restless with my old self and has decided to move on. Or I’ve left behind a part of myself that isn’t working. And my shadowy right brain is telling me not to worry, these things happen. I’ll get over myself.

Either that, or it means something else entirely and I’ll have to think on it some more.

Or not. Moving on is always a good option.

*I do not know Mr. Depp in real life. Why my unconscious chose him for this appearance I have yet to figure out. Unless it’s that whole Wino Forever thing.

Random quote of the day:

 

“Think of this fleeting life…like a bubble rising in a stream, a falling star, a phantom, a dream.”

—The Diamond Sutra

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”

—attributed to Paul Valéry

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

The lovely and talented mnfaure is dreaming dreams for the future. She would like input on her idea for running workshops in Provence combining a writers’ retreat and French cuisine. Please visit her and let her know what you think of the idea. Everything’s in the planning stage at this point, but dreaming is so much fun!

Random quote of the day:

 

“If growing up is the process of creating ideas and dreams about what life should be, then maturity is letting go again.”

—Mary Beth Danielson, column, Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“When the writing is really working, I think there is something like dreaming going on. I don’t know how to draw the line between the conscious management of what you’re doing and this state. It usually takes place in the earlier stages, in the drafting process. I would say that it’s related to daydreaming. When I feel really engaged with a passage, I become so lost in it that I’m unaware of my real surroundings, totally involved in the pictures and sounds that that passage evokes.”

—John Hersey, The Paris Review, Summer-Fall 1986, No. 100

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

The WIP in rewrites was at first losing words at a good rate, and I was pleased about that. Getting rid of excess, making things clean. I actually like rewrites, perverse creature that I am. Structural problems, however, made it necessary for me to add new material and so I’ve written three new scenes and I will be adding more. Deleting and rearranging more, too, but the word count is currently larger than when I started. Not as large as the first bloated draft, but growing. I am not too worried about this. I have to get the structure, story, and character stuff right first, then I can worry about slimming. There will be at least one more draft for hammering that out.

I’m only on chapter 8, though I’ve been at it a month. It’s taking forever because my writing time is so limited these days. The only block of time I can count on is my lunch hour at work Monday through Friday. Weekends are completely absorbed with errands and chores and by evening I’m so trashed all I can do is sit it the chair, drool, and try not to fall asleep. Weeknights are often the same. I feel like I’m having to steal time for the creativity, and I’m hoping that when things regularize, my creative time-space will expand again.

At least I still have words. I was worried for a time that I’d used them all up. Things aren’t as fecund as they used to be, but I still have something.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve told myself bedtime stories: little storylets to help me drift into sleep; sometimes multi-pronged epics that I’ve been telling myself for years, often too silly to actually commit to the page, but fun and comforting all the same. These days, I fall into bed and I’m either immediately asleep or my mind is full of things to do, or worries, or…anything but stories. I can think of only one other period in my life when I didn’t tell myself bedtime stories. It was during that four or five year-long writers’ block I had. As soon as the bedtime stories started again, I began writing again, so there is something fundamental about my process involved in those dreamy tales.

I still have words. I still have words. I must remember that. Some day I may have time again, and I may have hypnogogic yarns to lull me into dreams, and oh yes, I may have dreams again, even dreams that are fit to put on the page.

Random quote of the day:
“Stories begin in dreams and without the stories that we dream, we live someone else’s life rather than our own. Life’s like art. You have to work hard to keep it simple and still have meaning.”

—Charles de Lint, “The Pochade Box”

This artist makes these remarkable miniature scenes using railroad hobbyist figures and whatever else she can find for atmospherics, then photographs them. You can visit her Etsy shop here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

I had me the nicest wish fulfillment dream last night. I dreamed I got an email from an agent named Anna Scott in the office of some BN agent I’d sent my ms. of Shivery Bones to. (I marketed the hell out of Shivery Bones and decided it was time to give that one a rest and move on to something else, but apparently, the old submariner part of my brain hasn’t given up flogging it.)

Not only did Anna of my dreams love the book and want to represent me, she’d even done preliminary checking with an editor at one of the big houses and they wanted to offer me $100,000(!). I met with her and we hit it off and I said, “Yes, I want you to represent me and I will sell this book to them for $100,000.” The End and everyone lived HEA.

Yes, I know. That would never happen in RL. Wish fulfillment! Straight from the land of the Happy Fairies of Nod!

I’d been awake a couple of hours before I remembered that Anna Scott was the name of the Julia Roberts character in Notting Hill (a wish fulfillment fantasy if there ever was one) (one that I happen to love, being a wish fulfillment fantasy kinda gal). I googled the name and there is a talent agent named Anna Scott, but no literary agents that I could see.

It would have been nice if it had been a wish fulfillment fantasy with precognitive overtones, but alas…