Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floofish (catfinition) – a cat who pretends to be another creature or fakes doing other activities to take advantage of others or a situation.
In use: “She was a little floofish, pretending to sleep when the plate of chicken was put out, but once she was alone in the room, she leaped up, grabbed a piece, and scurried away to enjoy it in private.”
A dream began and ended. I slipped between the cracks of being asleep and awake and considered the dream.
My muses rode in our horses. There were five, all women.
And David Bowie’s song, “Heroes,” began playing.
###
I’ve been having a series of nostalgic dreams about being happier and more contented. These dreams reflect my wry private observation about my life’s trajectory. I’d followed an upward curve for decades, the kind that’s part of the mythology of working hard and being rewarded when really, it was partly being a beneficiary of being a white male with a modicum of sense in modern America. Sometimes there was a brief drop, and there were a few sharp spikes. Overall, it’d been up and steady. Now, I ride a plateau.
This dream was like that series, but sharper. It centered around me opening a business. I’d picked a location but was having buyer’s remorse and self-doubts. I walked around thinking, what to do, what to do. Was this really what I wanted to do? More, it didn’t seem like a good business idea. Friends, family, and business associates were present. As it grew clear that I was dissatisfied and bothered, they offered alternative ideas for the space and my business.
That triggered fond thinking about going to coffee shops and bakeries. I thought the space was perfect for that. Into the dream comes one of my old CEOs, enthusiastically reminiscing about life at a start-up, and coffee shops like this. Everyone was excited about that idea, and I awoke on the verge of a decision.
After thinking about that dream, I reordered myself to sleep.
Then the muses rode in.
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The five muses rode in and stopped. I had a profile shot of them in a line. They were looking straight ahead. I don’t know what they looked at it. It was then I realized they were my muses. I recognized the setting from the scene I’m working on in my novel.
Bowie’s “Heroes” began playing. IT would play on a continuous loop in the background for the rest of the dream. The song was a live version from one of Bowie’s last shows.
The woman in the center was on a light brown horse. She dismounted. Her horse and the other muses went away. She transformed into one of my novel’s characters. The story-telling commenced. As her story spread out like I watched a movie, she said, “No, further back. This series of scenes needs to begin further back.”
So back we went, resetting the start of her part in this series. She began telling it again. It was like I was in a movie watching her.
There’s a lot to write today.
###
As a final part of the dream sequences, I dreamed a dragon flew through me. Huge, it flew through my body and breathed fire, burning out any diseases in me.
As far as I know, I don’t have any diseases.
“Champagne Supernova” by Oasis was one of my top twenty songs of 1996. My first year of retirement after the military, I was working Palo Alto for a medical device startup. “Champagne Supernova” resonated with me because the words didn’t always have a cause and effect relationship; I saw the same lack of cause and effect in my life. I was just floating along, and things were happening.
Don’t you hate it when you keep writing in your head, and then sit down to write and discover that you have entire chapters completed in your head that need to be typed out?
Yikes. I like it that the muses are so active and engaged with me. That’s not the kind of thing I want to complain about (even though, yes, I acknowledge that I am whinging about it, right?) because I don’t want to insult them. You know how temperamental the little sweethearts can be. Speaking of which, does anyone have suggestions about what sort of thank you gifts muses like? Is there a protocol? Does Hallmark have a line of cards for muses?
Got my coffee and ass in chair. Time to type like crazy and try to catch up with the muses.
Don’t you hate it when you’re stopped behind two other cars, because they’ve legally stopped for a person in the crosswalk, and the car coming up behind you whips into the other land and accelerates to about ten M.P.H. over the speed limit and just misses the pedestrian in the crosswalk?
Yeah, I don’t think the man in the crosswalk was happy, either. Mindful of people being like icebergs, with so much of them hidden out of sight, I wonder what kind of idiot is driving that car.
Incatpatible (catfinition) – a person who doesn’t like or get along with felines.
In use: “The book club had one member who was incatpatible, so naturally she was like catnip for the house’s kittens.”
Bemoaning that the novel and series continues expanding (“This is taking forever!”), I was thinking of something like this quote for myself last night. “Just keep typing,” I told myself. “Don’t rush it. When it’s done, it’s done.”
Meanwhile, I thought Steinbeck was quoted as saying that finishing a novel is like having a death in the family. I decided to look for that quote this morning, but found the other one instead. It’s almost like it’s all part of a plan.
A car passed by as I walked in the wind, drizzle, and sun yesterday. One of the car’s windows were down, and the Bee Gees streamed out:
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
Naturally, my mind completed the song and then put it on a loop and added it to the day’s shuffle. I haven’t heard “To Love Somebody” in a long time. I think the last time was in a movie. It was released in the late sixties, before the Bee Gees became embedded with disco. I liked a lot of Bee Gees music back then. They had some tight harmonies.
So, from my ear worm to yours. Please, enjoy this on your Thursday. Cheers
Was it a worm, a thread, a nibble, a spark? I can’t codify what it was that happened as I rushed through a few quick chores (with three cats eyeing me from comfortable curls to ensure no noisy machines were engaged). The brain was freed from thinking, and the muses thundered in with one of those OMG shots that started me laughing and saying, “Yes,” (which caused the cats to raise their heads in questioning unison).
As Thomas Weaver reminds me once in a while, many writers begin in the middle, without full awareness of what’s happening. Following the spark of a concept that flames into a story, we let the characters arrive to illuminate events and motives. As I’ve gone through those steps to create a massive arc that covers four novels (each with their own arc of discovery and story-telling) and contemplate the end (which was already written), ideas sparked (or were there loose threads that I pulled, or a worm wiggling into my imagination), showing me that I’d not completely thought out and understood the concept. Even though I’ve been writing about it since July of 2016 and there are over a million words, there was more to know and write about.
This newest addition tickles me, and I think about it with amused excitement. It has a “holy cow” aura. Such fun. And in a few minutes this morning, as the cats watched, I was reminded again how much I enjoy fiction writing, and why.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
I like the sun
I like the rain
I like how the day
smells this way
I like the breeze
that’s sometimes a wind
I like the scents
that tease and spin
I like the hours passing me by
and the time spent
with no one asking me why
Michael Seidel, writer 