Monday’s Bumper Sticker
Yeah, Another Dream
I’ve been doing a lot of writing in my head. When I sit down to write, I’m already spun up and ready to write. I’ve noticed that when I write in my head to such an extent, I also seem to dream more. It’s like some portal in me has been opened during that period, and imagination flows into my writing become diverted into dream flows when I sleep.
I didn’t star in this dream. I was there, and featured, but the stars were a young female tennis player and a wealthy country man.
It started out with country boy. I call him a boy, but that was the nature of descriptions in this place. Boy didn’t denote an age, but a style. Gregarious, beloved, and admired by his farm-based community, he asked me, out of the blue, if I’d like to ride in his helicopter. I was teenager. I immediately understood this was an honor and treat, and accepted. People were envious, but in a joking way, because they’d not been in his helicopter.
He and I did some errands in his truck. When done, we drove down to his helicopter. It was a little two-seater with a bubble cockpit. He was the pilot, and took us aloft on a aerial tour of the region. He regaled me with stories about his life as he did. When we landed, he offered me a ride in his burnt-orange Lamborghini roadster. We did that, riding through town and around the countryside. It felt like a special day for me, and I was flattered to be treated like this.
A young woman arrived. Actually, she was fourteen, so appropriately, she was a girl, but people in the dream referred to her as the young woman. She was small and slender, with dark eyes and hair. No one thought much of her. She was supposed to be some tennis star, but everyone was skeptical of her because of her stature and quiet demeanor.
A demonstration game was arranged, her against local pros. Suddenly, she was revealed as a different person. Her relentless speed, quickness, accuracy, and intelligence went on full display as she beat player after player. Everyone was talking about her long after the games ended, marveling that such a small person could have a powerful overhead shot and tremendous serve, and be so fast. She was going to be given the helicopter and Lamborghini rides, too. I unabashedly endorsed that, telling the wealthy patron she deserved such an honor more than me.
Late day found us eating a huge communal dinner. It was held outdoors. Everyone was sitting on pillows and blankets. The food was strange and exotic. I can’t begin to describe the eels, snakes, and shellfish I saw being served.
Then came a special event where the patron beat his white SUV. It was a new car. I didn’t understand the reasons for beating it, but he hit it one time so hard that the car was folded into two. We all thought it was an astonishing display of strength, but also a statement on his indifference to his wealth.
And there was where the dream ended.
Three Strange Dreams
Three strange dreams afflicted me last night, one after enough in a line of dreams.
- I dreamed I’d removed my penis from my body and was making pencil sketches of it that I shared with others. There was no blood loss or discomfort. I was showing the drawings to friends and families, and was holding my penis in my hand. They never noticed that I was holding my penis, but were surprised and appalled by my sketches (which were very realistic, in that style of drawing that I used to do).
- The second dream placed me in an uncomfortable backwoods setting. I was with people that reminded me of the folks I knew in West Virginia. These folks are hard, shallow, and bitter people, with little empathy. Their circumstances might make them that way (although I also think, if it’s so fucking terrible, why don’t you leave and find something better?). I was looking for change to make a call. They weren’t concerned with that, but instead obsessed with how ignorant I was. This was because I’d found change in a stream (a quarter and a penny), but a dead body was in the stream. They thought I was going to get sick by getting in water with a dead body. I insisted on doing it because I needed the change. I thought there was more there, so after looking elsewhere, I returned to the stream and searched. As I did, I looked at the dead body, which turned out to be a large, black dog. I wondered how he died and arrived in the water, and hoped that he hadn’t suffered.
- In the third dream, I was in an all-white place, like a ship, wearing an all-white flight suit. Others were there, dressed in the same way. There was no one familiar to me but I knew them in the dream. We were concerned mostly with the toilets, and which toilet to use, and why the toilets was dirty, and whether the toilets worked. I was less concerned about this, and kept trying to direct the conversation and activity to something other than fucking toilets, but it was a challenge; these people were obsessed with the damn toilets. We finally got around to other things, like, hey, we’re supposed to be flying. An involved conversation about who was supposed to be doing what, like flying, developed. I was dismayed and perplexed by how the others all wanted to assign people narrow tasks. Moving off by myself, I went ahead and flew. That impressed others, who weren’t aware that I could fly, and peppered me with questions about how I’d learned and what else I could do. Their questions amazed me. I told them, it wasn’t hard, I’d always known how, people only made it hard for themselves by thinking they had to be special to do things.
Yeah, weird dreams. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Flooftapose
Flooftapose (cafinition) – cats sitting or laying in close order or proximity to one another.
In use: “Flooftaposed side by side by side, the cats sat on the sofa, watching out the windows at things I could not see.”
Sunday’s Theme Music
I wasn’t enthralled with Duran Duran and their music. Some of their music hit the charts in a big way, and friends like them, so I was exposed to them. Despite that, every once a song strikes a sweet spot in the day and hangs with you.
So it happened this morning as I looked out the window. It looked deceptively warm and beautiful, deceptively because my weather station warned me that it was thirty-one F outside. But it was beautiful, yet ordinary with its vistas of far, snowy tree covered mountains juxtaposed against the local greenery and blooming plum trees and daffodils. This is our every day view, so ordinary and special. Yet, changes, from seasonal movement to economic shifts and the ways of life and death, were visible from where I was.
So I streamed, “But I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world, somehow I have to find. And, as I try to find my way in an ordinary world, I will learn to survive.”
In Green
I’m wearing green today, homage to St. Patrick’s Day in America.
I don’t celebrate holidays much, and celebrate them less as I age. I don’t look forward to them much. Putting out decorations rarely occurs to me.
After thinking about it, I’ve realized that I little associate with the external world. Events are remote. I live by and enjoy the internal worlds created as I imagine and write. It’s a problem, and it’s a benefit. The problem is that my wife is exasperated because I’m not all up about holidays like other people. The benefit is that I feel like I’m successfully writing, and that makes me happy. Like most things in life, the value is on a sliding spectrum, and changes often.
I suppose I could change it, or try, since I’m now aware, but I’m not inclined to do that – for now.
E.L. Said
This was difficult to understand when I first started writing. I thought I needed to know all of the story before I began writing it. I didn’t appreciate that I was learning the story as much as I was writing it.
My Five Writing Rules
I have simple writing rules. It’s a complicated world, so why burden myself with greater complications?
- Write every day. Writing every day helps me maintain story continuity, and making progress is tangibly reassuring. I also like the practice and discipline, but as an amendment to this rule, I stay flexible and adapt. I don’t sweat it if I can’t write every day. Okay, I confess, I sweat it, but I endure with the promise to myself, “I will write again.”
- Write like crazy. Yep, put it down, one word after another, and let it flow like lava escaping an erupting volcano. Then, edit, polish, edit, polish, revise, re-write, and edit and polish. It’s a rare sentence that is not changed in some manner between first thought and final edit. After grudgingly accepting that re-writing, polishing, and editing are necessary, I now enjoy this process. Writing like crazy is a fast and intense process, but the polishing, etc., is loving, and let me feel the novel and see how it breathes.
- Don’t overthink it and don’t write for anyone else. Man, I get angst about what I’m writing. I worry that it’s crap, and I suffer the imposter syndrome. Even as I write and enjoy what I write, I worry that others won’t like it, that it won’t measure up as professional, meaningful, entertaining, or original. I fear the moment when someone stands up, points a finger at me, and shouts, “J’accuse! You are not a writer.” However, I’m also ready to respond, “Fuck you, jack.” Of course, that won’t prevent me from brooding about it.
- Create and maintain a support structure. Like anything that you consider imperative, such as eating properly, exercising, or family time, it was critical for me to let others know that it’s writing time is important. In return, I set a schedule for it, and adhere to it, so that they know when I’ll be writing. Telling others – coming out of the writing closet, if you will – was a huge step. People respect the effort. Telling my wife, and her support of my writing efforts, were tremendous boosts to my ability to go off and write every day. Writing is already a solitary and lonely business, but her support reduces the struggle by an immeasurable chunk.
- Don’t talk to others about the novel(s) in progress. People will ask, and I do want to share. But it’s so easy to let that writing excitement overpower the moment. I end up going on and on, regaling them about the characters, concept, plot and complications, even as I understand that it’s in beta, or first draft, or whatever, and subject to change. Just answer politely in vaguely sensible terms, change the subject, and let them escape for being a good friend and inquiring.
Any rules that work for you that you want to suggest? No pressure.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Floofcoholic
Floofcoholic (catfinition) – excessive or compulsive love of cats and anything feline.
In use: “He was a floofcoholic, visiting with cats that he met on the streets, sleeping with cats, and asserting their welfare over that of his family and self.”
Michael Seidel, writer 