Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Edgy dreams undermine my rest even while I sleep.
Sometimes they seem malicious,
but they help restore balance and serenity.
More frequently, they’re insane, causing me concern about my mental health,
although sometimes, they’re not remembered, listing in the gray of my thinking’s edge
like shipwrecks from other times.
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.
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.
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.
Last night’s dreams were sooo long and involved, but they all featured two central themes: I was playing games, and I was winning.
At one point in one dream, I’d won some huge prize. I’m on a stage, being cheered. People are crowding around to congratulate me. Ecstatic and incredulous, I kept saying, “I can’t believe I won.”
Later, I was playing another game, and winning, but said, “Why am I playing this game?”
“Who cares?” a man said. “You’re winning.”
I said, “But I don’t like this game.”
He said, “Are you kidding? It’s your dream.”
The moment’s duality caught me. It was my dream, and I was dreaming it, but it wasn’t my dream to play games.
After that, it all made sense.
I almost titled this piece, “Monday’s Theme Music”. It feels like Monday. I blame my dreams for that. In one dream, I was living by a calendar, taking lessons, learning, and pushing to achieve goals based on the calendar. I awoke exhausted and confused.
Meanwhile, as many have noted, the Notre Damen Cathedral fire is terrible. As others have pointed out, hundreds of millions of dollars have poured in to repair the building, money not shared to address many world problems. How money is shared — and released, as one billionaire put it — is indicative of our wealthy population’s general senses of duty and caring toward other humans. Ain’t none of us surprised by it.
Of course, the Catholic Church itself isn’t a poor entity, either. They hold onto their treasures because those treasures are part of their history. Meanwhile…people suffer. Guess that’s part of their history, too, then, innit?
It all makes me bang my head, from the exhausting dream of relentlessly chasing and proving knowledge and attempting to reach higher goals, to the craziness seen in the world, as delivered by the news.
So, here it is, “Metal Health” by Quiet Riot (1983). Feel free to bang your head.
I pray for hope
I haven’t kept you too
long as I know that you’ll
always be the drink for
me and you, it always
seems like we’re getting lost in the
words can make a difference, especially how
they come and go through the spirals of
our changing lives and times because
what was once familiar has become
strange that I think of this now in
conjunction with where we’ve been and
where things have
gone are the expectations and
dreams are what keeps me
going for the goal that
I pray for hope.
embalmed with denigration
drowning in clichés
paralyzed with expectations
frustrated by delays
harpooned with envy
mesmerized by guilt
sucked into disappointment
sunken in the silt
riding all the waves
hoping in belief
searching for the way
getting stuck on a beach
Michael Seidel, writer 