Category: Dreams

The Hot Mess

Dreams wrecked my sleep like booming thunderstorms. While the dreams went all over the place, often with multiple storylines and settings, and frequently anxiety fraught, one theme stayed true: the leads were missing or broken. I kept hunting them or trying to repair them. In one example, others brought in a large and heavy broken motor. “Know what we found in this?” one man that helped deliver the heavy electric motor said. He was affable and burly, curly-haired and sunburned, a little dirty and greasy in his blue uniform with its red and white name tag with “Mike” in script, and a gap in his teeth.

I grinned. “Broken leads, right?”

Mike grinned back. “Yep. You got it. The leads weren’t working.”

Stepping back, I’d finished the first draft of April Showers 1921 a few days ago. I found it a hot mess. Good writing, yes, but shitty storytelling. The concept had over-excited me, and I’d peed all over the place. It’s my big friggin’ writin’ weakness. The first draft had become six hundred Word pages and one hundred fifty thousand words. The last quarter and ending were weak. The beginning and middle were confusing.

When something goes wrong, I try to figure out what to do. That’s been try for me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, the process requires me to walk away from the project. Grant my mind some space and let it work. This isn’t one of those projects, though. I felt an urgency to keep working on it.

The writing hadn’t been a waste of time, of course. One, it entertained me. Second, I learned more about the concept, and then the story. As I’ve quoted Terry Pratchett before, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

Now I knew the whole story, and it needed to be re-worked. Many hours of thinking and walking were conducted in search of what to do. Well, I roughly knew what to do: revise and edit. Sure, but I thought, more structure was needed than to proclaim revise and edit and go forth. I needed a better, more solid plan. I just wasn’t satisfied enough with this draft to begin considering revise and edit. I was thinking, write again.

I didn’t wanna write it again, I whined. I know, I answered. That’s writing.

Decisions were made. Each decision took me down a tangible plan. I began seeing how and why I’d concluded the ending and last quarter were weak. Glimpses of what to do began emerging.

Wasn’t easy to get there. The journey from proclaiming hot mess to saying, okay, this is what I’m going to do, took hours of thinking and plotting. It was intense. I was not a good person to be around. Fortunately, I was mostly on my own.

Then came the dreams.

The dreams were beneficial. They didn’t dictate, “DO THIS,” in a deep voice that might’ve been Jehovah or James Earl Jones. No, the dreams were more like a thundering rain storm with strong winds, blowing out the mess.

Now, it’s been accepted. The first hot mess was done; work is required. The path has been defined. Jaw is set. Coffee is at hand. I’m in position.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Monday’s Theme Music

I began as a ZZ Top fan in high school art class in 1973. I introduced them to my friend, who became my girlfriend and then my wife when Tres Hombres came out that year. “La Grange” become a song that had her reaching for the volume knob and twisting it hard right whenever it came on.

I’ve seen them in concert three times. Today’s song came about from a dream last night. Multi-tasking in the dream, one sequence had me trying to feed the cats. They were going nuts for the food that I was offering them. I was trying to keep them out of it while putting the food in bowls for them. Meanwhile, a dozen interruptions were transpiring.

Anyway, from that feeding sequence, I started singing to them, “Gimme all your kibble, all your hugs and kisses, too,” because that’s how it seemed in the dream. My music stream picked it up and started cranking out “Gimme All Your Lovin'” from Eliminator (1983).

Never seen the video before, though. I was overseas during those years in places that usually didn’t have television available. Kind of a cheesy video. But it was the 1980s.

 

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Sunday’s Theme Music

My dreams were were story dreams, basically telling of times when I seemed to live in other times and places. Some were futuristic, which were more interesting. I remember looking thinking in one dream, is this a dream, or knowledge of another life? It was fun and thrilling.

All that, on waking, took me on a walk through my characters’ happenings as I’m finishing April Showers 1921 (first draft). I’m tying final plot and action strings together. Some of it’s a little knotty.

From those musings popped the Neil Diamond 1966 song, “Solitary Man”. That song amused me because those characters don’t know that song and would never think of it, or apply it to their lives and situations.

Then, though, I sat down to drink my coffee and read the news. One story was about an alligator in Florida attacking a woman. Into my mental music stream jumped old song lyrics, “Gator got your granny. Chomp. Chomp, chomp.”

I had several things wrong with that song. I thought Jim Stafford performed it, but no, it was Tony Joe White. I thought the song’s title was “Folk Salad Annie” but it was “Polk Salad Annie”.

Geez. At least I had the year right, 1969. I decided that “Polk Salad Annie” was my choice for Sunday’s theme music.

Sorry, Neil.

 

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The Path Dream

Just did a walk-about writing break, and thought about one of last night’s dreams.

I was helping a man build a path. We each had a length of nylon rope. What I thought of as his rope was yellow and mine was white. The white rope was in my left hand, and the yellow rope was in my right. It was reversed for him. We were using the ropes to lay out the path. It was a long path, and were squatting down to do this.

So, weird, the path already existed in my mind, because he was laying the rope on a long and straight stretch of black cement. On either end was a platform that people were to use to arrive and depart.

Others were watching from grassy areas on either side of me. The man would shift the ropes one way and then the other as I followed his lead. I didn’t understand why he was doing this. “How’s it going?” an onlooker asked me.

“Slow,” I said. “I don’t understand what he’s doing. One, the path already exists. Why does he need another one? Two, why was he trying different paths? I don’t see what the difference he makes? Why doesn’t he make a decision? As part of that, I don’t understand why the path that’s already there doesn’t satisfy him. Three, shouldn’t the path, if you were going to make it, connect the platforms that people were expected to use?”

The onlooker said, “I don’t know.”

That dream ended.

Of course, thinking about it during my walk, I realized that I’m the other man. I have the path establish but doubt keeps me looking for another path. Why, I keep asking myself, just as I do in the dream? Clearly, it’s because I doubt the path, even though it’s already established.

 

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A Running Dream

Oh, the nights flowed with wild, wild dreams. They remain vivid in memory, but I don’t want to walk through dreamland, just visit a little niche of it.

I needed to get home in a hurry. I was miles away. I decided that the best thing that I could do is run.

A light drizzle was falling. I started running beside the busy, winding two lane highway. At first, cars were passing me. Irritated, I pushed myself to go faster. “I can go faster than them,” I told myself, even though they were going thirty-five to forty miles an hour. Soon, I was keeping up with the cars. I saw people in the vehicles watching and recording my running with their cellphones.

Ahead was a large sweeper. I’d been running on the berm left of the white fog line. The berm and shoulder disappeared; there was a twenty-five foot drop-off. Looking ahead and thinking about it, I decided I had no choice. Reaching the drop-off, I dropped to the lower level like a video-game character, and kept running. I knew that the people in the cars were wondering what’d happened to me, and grinned as I ran up a slope back onto the berm when it returned.

By then, the road’s grade increased as we began ascending a mountain. I can’t keep up, I thought, and then rejected that. Believing I could, I pushed myself to go faster. The road’s speed limit had increased to fifty-five, but as I ran up the hill, I passed the cars. Grinning and sweating, I arrived home.

It wasn’t home, but Mom’s home, where I was visiting with family. My wife was there and we were in a hurry because I needed to make flight arrangements and leave. That’s another part of the dream, though.

I woke up thinking about all of this. It was five ten in the morning. A hungry cat had done his duty and made me get up to do my duty. As I fed him (and another), the dream replayed in my mind, and the Boomtown Rats began singing, “I Don’t Like Mondays”. I went back to bed, back to sleep, and on to other dreams.

 

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Saturday’s Theme Music

After a night of interesting dreams – no family, games or military, but soup, spilling, and reach – I awoke and turned to thinking about the novel-in-progress. I focused on where I’d stopped yesterday, conducting a what’s-next exercise. Then I catapulted into more generalities before spinning the wheel to think about the greater story.

The muses were present and engaged, so it was a comfortable exercise. One said, “We can do this,” and another said, “I know we can.” “Yes, we can,” a third said.

That’s when I realized that they were channeling a 1973 Pointer Sisters song, “Yes We Can Can”. Although mostly about politics, change, and unity, it’s a powerful, energetic song about trying and confidence, too.

We got to iron out our problems
and iron out our quarrels
and try to live as brothers.
And try to find peace within
without stepping on one another.
And do respect the women of the world.
Remember you all have mothers.

Read more: The Pointer Sisters – Yes We Can Can Lyrics | 

Nineteen seventy-three. It was yesterday, and faraway. Here we are, dealing with madness in the White House, and setting up for more military conflict in the Middle-East. You know, because bombing other lands has all gone sooo well.

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The Family & Dogs Dreams

After dreaming about games, weather, and being back in the military, my dreamscape rotated to family and dogs. None of the people in these two dreams, except my wife, are anyone from my life.

In the first dream, I was a white man in a black family. I was an adult and I’m not sure how I came to be part of that family. I liked them but felt a little awkward with them. Mom, a smiling, confident, attractive woman, kept reassuring me that I was part of the family. The others agreed, but with less enthusiasm. I was always there when we ate and watched television, but was normally sitting off by myself.

Then Mom announced we were buying a new car. Cars were my thing so I was enthusiastic. That pleased Mom. She let me led the car-shopping expedition. We ended up buying a blue BMW M4 Cabrio. Mom made the choice, and it surprised me. It’s not a family-oriented car. I asked her with astonishment, “Are you sure?” Mom, always relaxed and in-control, said, “Yes, Michael, and you can drive it.”

My next dream found my wife and I taking care of dogs for several people during a holiday. Quite chaotic, I ended up driving another guy’s car. The car belong to my friend, Dominic. I was also taking care of his dog, Drew. Drew was a big, goofy, not-very-bright white canine who was always loping off to do something. There were several other dogs, but the were always where they were supposed to be, and not getting into trouble.

Lots of things were going on. It was a holiday weekend. We had guests and a big dinner party, the weather was unpredictable, and the dogs kept running off. All but Drew would return. I’d always need to look for Drew.

The big meal ended and we were cleaning up. I had a huge, clear bowl. It’d been used for spaghetti with sauce. Now it was a mess. I kept scrubbing it, per my style, to get it clean. I finally was almost finished

I was baffled about where my car was. Drew disappeared again, and I had to find him. I was exasperated because nobody else was helping.

The dream paused. I said, “Okay, everyone is accounted for except Quinn.” Quinn is my real-existence cat who passed away last November. “I haven’t seen Quinn in a while.” I worried about him being okay. Then I remembered that he’d passed away.

I couldn’t find Drew. One of our guests said that she thought Drew was at his home. I decided to go out to confirm that. As I went to leave, I saw that my wife was cleaning up the house after the dinner, but she was using the big, clear spaghetti bowl that I’d clean as a trash can. That upset me. I told her that I’d cleaned it. She brushed off my concerns.

I drove Dominic’s car out to his place to check to see if Drew was there. I felt bad about using his car, which was a 1960s muscle car, but it was too vague to remember exactly what it was. The car used a lot of gas, and I was worried about using all of his gas. His place was a mixed-used community with a train station, supermarket, fitness center, and townhouses. I went to Dominic’s townhouse.

The townhouse was large and luxurious, with a number of sprawling staircases. The family was home. They’d just gotten back. So was Drew, except he ran off when I went in. There were several other dogs. I decided to walk them while looking for Drew. One dog was very intelligent. I said, “Do you want to go for a walk?” The dog immediately went to the door. I said, “Let’s use the other door.” He turned, went up the steps to the other door.

We left through that door to take a walk and find Drew, but we ended up in the fitness center. The fitness center had a lounge where fit, attractive people were watching the news on television. Through glass walls, I could see into the fitness center where rows of people were exercising.

Finding another way out, I took the dogs for a walk. When I went outside, I found Drew cavorting around the lawns. He’d gotten dirty, of course. Seeing Dominic, I greeted him and chatted. I wasn’t sure if Drew had been at our house during the weekend and was trying to clarify how Drew was at his home. Dominic waved off my questions and concerns, telling me, “Drew is fine. Drew is Drew.”

I walked the dogs across a park and remembered that I had Dominic’s car and had forgotten to tell him.

After walking the dogs, I came across Dominic’s family. They were under the building, in  a plaza, relaxing on a blanket and looking out on the scenery. The plaza was open on all four sides. Mammoth pillars held up the train station and the buildings. From where they were, the trains could be watched as they arrived and departed. Past that was a rolling green countryside

I said, “You know, this isn’t actually a bad place. It’s got everything you need right here.”

Dominic’s wife said, “You know, we were just talking about it, and thought that this is the perfect place for people like you.”

I said, “Who are people like me?”

That’s where the dream ended.

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