A Happiness Dream
Sometimes a dream comes along that sparks happiness when you awaken and remember. So it was this morning, with four positive things happening to me in a dream last night.
- I was given a chocolate cupcake
- A major league baseball team signed me up a new pitcher
- I signed a book deal with an agent
- and I received a check for 33,000 dollars
Fun reviewing it all in the AM. The cupcake was dark and decadent. A stranger, female, gave it to me with a smile. She was going along, passing them out from a silver tray. The energy coming from her felt so positive, I never hesitated to eat it. And man, was it good. I offered some to my wife, but she declined.
I didn’t remember trying out for a baseball team, especially as a pitcher. As a young player, I had a strong arm but it was made more for the outfield than the mound. I got an email on my phone that it was probably going to happen: the Cincinnati Reds were going to sign me. Then a phone call was received that verified, yep, it was in the works. “Come in this afternoon to sign the paperwork.” My wife was on her phone when I tried to share that good news with her.
Then, though, after she was off her phone and I began telling her, I received another phone call. This was a literary agent. They’d read my manuscript, wanted to rep me, and already had a publisher eager to buy it. I was floored. As I jubilantly shared that with my wife, a man walked up and handed me a check for $33,000.
And that’s where the dream ended.
The Writing Moment
I completed revising and editing the novel in progress. Gravity’s Emotions.
I wrote the novel I wanted. The story I wanted to read. As ‘they’ always advise and suggest. ‘They’ are the establishment. The writers who made it. The teachers who teach it. The editors who edit it, the publishers who print it, the agents who represent it. Of course, once the writer writes the novel they want, ‘they’ all take their turns on it. That’s the art, and the business. Then it gets to the readers.
Woo, boy.
My doubts have been kicking me, heaping scorn on my effort. Those doubts are always ready to jump on me. Doesn’t matter what’s going on. They are what they are.
“Your idea of inconsistent consistent inconsistency is ridiculous,” they growl. “It’s too complicated. Too surreal and too far out there. And the book is too big. That’s also a stupid title.”
“Thanks, guys,” I answer. Because there is no arguing with doubt. Let it come, beat you up, expend its energy, and walk away. Don’t engage your doubt. That’s what ‘they’ say.
The doubts do present legitimate points. The manuscript is an epic monster. 700 pages. Umpteen billion words. Lot of fun to write, edit, revise. Amazing that I wrote that thing in a few hours a day. I started it in July of 2024. I often ponder, HTF is that possible? It neatly slots into my thoughts about duality: it was at once hard work and a long time and a lot of hours, and not much time, not too difficult, and a lot of fun.
Meanwhile, the draft is being distributed to my small core of private readers. See what they think. Decisions will be set regarding their feedback. Then, into the submission maws.
While that’s all happening, another novel is already underway.
S.E. Hinton Said
Hinton’s first novel, “The Outsiders”, was published fifty years ago.
Munda’s Wandering Thoughts
I’m just a Venn diagram. I’m at a point where massive disappointment in my nation fills me. I didn’t expect the GOP to fight Trump. It saddens me that I’m right. They just rolled over and became the Grand Ol’ Trump Party.
Pisses me off that the Trump Regime thumbs its nose at the law, treating elements like due process as something beneath them. Unfortunately, I predicted this when Trump was campaigning in 2024. So did many others. They laughed at us. But Trump said he would be a dictator on day one. We knew that wasn’t a joke.
Politically, I’m angry, disgusted, disappointed, and a whole dark rainbow of other negative energies about what’s going on from bullshit tariffs to the damaged economy to the ridiculous and unlawful gutting of the Federal government to — well, fill in the blank.
But it’s a sunny and warm spring day. Promise is in the air. I’m getting ready for beer with friends on Wednesday. They’re intelligent, good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing them. Preparing for a secular Easter brunch with friends on Sunday. That’ll have bittersweet toppings drizzled over it. Some of the regulars are gone. Others are in hospice.
Writing is fun and full of promise. That puts me in a very positive frame. A novel draft is finished, and so many other novels are lined up, eager to be written. But will that finished draft hold up in the next round of editing and revision? Then there’s the publishing game. That closes the damper on my enthusiasm.
Mom texts me and reminds me that she wants to be cremated. Do what we will with the ashes. Play Glenn Miller at her service. Hold it in the garden. She’s lived almost nine decades but she endures hourly pain and discomfort. Her quality of life can be categorized as miserable.
Down to one cat, my cativities are truncated from what they once were. An air of depression clouds that aspect of life.
Financially, my wife and I are okay. Viewing my health, I can be better or worse. Got all my limbs. They function well. I endure little regular pain on a daily basis. I’m not as strong nor limber as I used to be, and my hair is trekking away from my forehead. Memory still works for most of the time on most of the days.
My wife’s health is not as good. She searches for words more often and doesn’t find them. She’s developed a new habit of forgetting to turn things on or off. She’s bitter and angry with the world, especially with Trump, and the Roberts Court. She’s furious and anxious about women’s rights. Shoulder and back pain are building up their frequent flier miles with her.
So, I am here. In the middle of it all, happy and sad. Worried and hopeful. Bitter and angry. Joyful and loving. Loved and frustrated. I read of far worse situations for people. Like those in Gaza. Ukraine. Immigrants hunting a better existence for themselves and those they love. War and disaster refugees trying to find a home. People working hard and struggling harder. Sleeping in cars and hanging on for meals and help. Women and people of color hiding, living in fear, beaten and killed for who they are. People with a gender that doesn’t fall cleanly into male or female dismissed as less than equal, unaccepted by narrow-minded bigots. People starving to death as billionaires pile up more money and more property, self-pleasuring themselves with mindless greed.
We seem so far away from Star Trek‘s ideals and so much closer to Mad Max, Solyent Green, and The Handmaid’s Tale.
Life is one hell of a spectrum.
Yes!
Daily writing prompt
You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?
I’ve thought about what I’d do if I got some great, amazingly fanastic news before. In fact, back in 1994, I bough a lottery ticket. The jackpot was some ridiculously high amount. A co-worker asked, “What will you do if you win?”
And I said, “I will shout, yes! Yes! Fuck yes! And I’ll punch my fist in the air for emphasis.”
That, I think is what my response will be to any great, amazingly fantastic news that I get. Then I’ll tell my wife so she can share my excitement.
Michael Seidel, writer 