Tag: Unfocused

The Brown Cougar Dream

My wife and I arrived at a resort hotel, meeting our friend, Bob and his wife. Real-life note: this is not the same Bob from my previous dreams, but a friend and co-worker from my military days. The wife in this dream wasn’t his real-life wife.

Bob, who was prematurely bald, had thick black in the dream. My wife and I had just arrived. Bob and his wife came by to greet us and make plans.

I noticed some filth on the ceiling. It disgusted me so I looked for something to clean it up. I found some spray and sprayed it all over but then needed a ladder and rag. A young hotel worker asked me what I was doing. I explained myself. He shook his head and reassured me, “Don’t worry about it, we have it covered. It’s not your problem.”

I went back into the room and noticed the spray had already made the ceiling mess almost invisible.

Bob and I ended up outside, where it was like a desert after a rainstorm. He was carrying a young animal he’d rescued. Noticing a young brown cougar down the hill, I followed behind Bob to protect him from the cougar and found a large stick to use as a weapon.

Waiting on a porch for Bob’s return, I saw the cougar watching me. As that registered, the cougar approached. Raising the stick, I yelled and made myself big.

Sitting down, the cougar asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m making myself big and making noises to scare you away.”

The cougar chuckled. “Did you really think that was going to work?”

“That’s what they tell us to do.”

“Anyway, you’re safe for now,” the cougar said, “but you scheduled to die tomorrow, and I’ll eat you.”

I was appalled and vowed not to let that happen.

The cougar shrugged. “It’s going to happen. It’s on the schedule.” He indicated a bright pink and blue poster. I read the poster but saw nothing about my death on it.

Back in the hotel room, I showered and cleaned up. Bob came by to see if I was ready. I told him that I needed to shower. I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower and then realized, what am I doing? I already showered.

I was now naked downstairs and needed to up to my room. Entering the stairwell, I caught a reflection of myself and found I was astonishingly good-looking — much younger, lean and muscular, with a thick head of dark brown hair swept to one side. As I started up the steps, a young woman entered.

“Eek,” she said, pretending to turn away. Covering her face with a hand, she looked at me between her fingers. “A naked man.”

I laughed and apologized, continuing up the steps, and encountered another woman. “Locked out without your clothes?” she mused.

“Yes, that’s what happened.”

She chuckled. “We’ve all been there.”

Now dressed, I joined Bob and our wives in another area of the resort. I saw the brown cougar in the crowd, watching me. I realized that I’d forgotten something in the room and needed to go back. Bob drew up a complex map, showing me where we were and how to get back to my room, 1004, at the top of the building. Although his map was detailed, I felt bewildered and said, “I’ll never find my way back through that maze.”

Bob said, “Alright, let me go with you, at least part of the way, until you know where you’re at.”

Dream end.

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Bob and the House: Just Dreaming

My dream patterns have been disrupted. I dreamed but remembered little for several days. In fact, the only thing remembered for three days in a row was a friend’s appearance. Each night featured a snippet of Bob showing up.

In the first dream, I was busy with something, looked up, and saw Bob walking toward me. I said, “Hey, there’s Bob.” Bob walked past me without saying anything. I mused, “I wonder where Bob’s going.”

In the second and third dreams, each on separate nights, I saw Bob approaching. “Hey, there’s Bob.” Both these times ended up with Bob walking up to me but not speaking as the dream memory ended.

I told Bob about that last night. He responded, “Boy, I’d really like to explore that more.”

Meanwhile, I have a full and sharp memory of a dream from last night. I was at a house with my wife and familiars who may have been cousins. I think it was a wealthy aunt’s house. The resident was gorgeous, a place that celebrated wealth and luxury.

Yet, as I walked around, I noticed horrible details: toilets were full of urine and toilet paper. Showers were filthy with mold. They had a huge, beautiful driveway made of brick and cut stones, but a grimy black layer covered much of it.

Appalled, I began looking for cleaning supplies to address these things. Doing so, I opened cupboards, drawers, and closets. Supplies were found in chaotic piles. Separating pieces, I found rags, sponges, and cleaners.

My wife came by and asked, “What are you doing?” I explained, showing her the filthy toilets and showers, then took her out to the driveway.

As I talked about the driveway to my wife, I noticed a young woman cleaning part of the driveway with a pressure washer. Interrupting her work, I clarified what she was doing and then asked her to wash some of the black off another part. She responded, “I’m not supposed to work on that part.”

I said, “Can you do me a favor and wash it off a little so I can confirm what’s under it?”

She did, confirming what I thought. I showed my wife and remembered, “This part is really bad because they used to have an RV parked here. I’m going to get a power washer and clean it off.”

That’s where the dream ended.

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The Writing Moment

I’m revising and editing the novel in progress, “Unfocused”. This pass is for understanding, coherency, continuity. More planned passes will address line edits and polishing. I do address egregious issues whenever I encounter them but improving mechanics and refinement isn’t my current focus.

It goes well but it’s not an even tide. Most chapters are broken into six to ten numbered sections. It fascinates me is how well I remember writing passages and yet they seem like foreign lands. Distinct memories of decisions and progressions are encountered. When I wrote the novel, I sometimes wasn’t satisfied with a chapter and decided to get out of my way, just get it all down, go on, and return to it during revisions. Chapters also exist where I worked them and worked them until they satisfied the writer of that day and I was content to move on.

How I addressed the chapters and sections show. Revision for one rushed chapter consumed an entire week, developing into a sequence of revising and editing. Sometimes several passes of a section were done in one day. More than once, I walked away to think and digest what was and wasn’t working and where changes were needed. Those breaks always helped.

Other days — yesterday, for instance — I swept through one entire chapter in one two-hour session and walked away pleased. It all varies.

Now, back to editing and revising “Unfocused”, 536 pages long, resuming at page 246.

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The Writing Moment

I wrote “The End.” Then I sat there, slightly stupefied, wondering what to do next.

Is it really the novel’s end? Only the three Rs—re-reading, rewriting, revising—will tell me.

It feels good as a novel at this point. I think I found the story and followed it where it needed to go, shaping plot and character along the way. Like so many writers, I’m left with a quiet sense of wonder: nearly five hundred pages spent exploring another life, another existence. There’s sadness, too. I enjoyed my characters. Writing “The End” makes me miss them already.

A million other ideas are queued up, hungry. But first, I’ll take a day and let the novel—and myself—breathe. Then I’ll open it again, turn to page one, and begin the three Rs.

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The Writing Moment

I was in the coffee shop, writing the current novel in progress. In fact, I was writing the newest ending to it. This one was not an ending which I’d envisioned, although it was a path that veered from that planned ending.

As I typed, one of my coffee-shop writing friends came by. “I can see you’re deep into it,” she said. “You have the writer face going.”

She and I laughed and she went on. In truth, I was ready for a break because writing butt was settling in. One cheek felt numb and the other was sore.

But you probably know how it is. There was more to write. Hungry, thirsty, pressed for time, I kept going, writing like crazy till I finally took a breath, sat back, and said, “Done.”

We’ll see if I’m done, of course. If the novel is done. Finished.

We’ll see.

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The Cat & Dog Dream

I was at some sort of crowded little outdoor coffee. The business was wedged into a place not made for business. Small tables crowded together on a patio lined with low cinder-block walls on two sides, flowery weeds growing out of cracks, all on the edge of a tiny parking lot. A street is close by. The actual business, a rustic hole-in-the-wall offering is on the parking lot’s other side along with two or three other tiny businesses.

Pretty day and I’m a young visitor. A ginger and white cat comes to check me out. A woman who comes and goes says, “She’s begging for food. She’s always begging for food.” I try to accommodate the friendly feline. Fortunately, I have cat food! It’s cheese and something. I open the plastic cat food container and let the cat sniff. It’s eager, so I put the container down under the table, under a flowery tablecloth, so the cat can eat it.

The cat quickly returns. “You didn’t eat all that, that fast, did you?” I look below. “No, you barely touched it.” I laughed and scratched the cat’s head. “You just like being fed, don’t you?”

The woman returns with a small dog. Terrier type with curly beige fur. The dog is polite, with bright eyes, sniffing around but making no sounds.

“He’s looking for food,” the woman says. “He likes to eat the cat food.”

The dog finds the cat food and goes to town. Then the woman orders him to follow her and they’re off again.

I feed the cat again, laughing at myself for doing so. I open several of the plastic tins just to humor the cat. It licks and eats from several of them, then comes back in a quest for more.

The woman and dog return. I tell the woman about opening several packages for the cat. I realize that I’ve been sitting there for a few hours and worry about the food going bad. I ask the woman if it’s okay for the dog to eat them. The dog watches me with silent hope during the exchange. When the woman says, “Yes,” the dog jumps down and I give it some old food.

Then, in a dream shift, a friend arrives. She’s another writer. I know that she’s quit writing but she’s here to talk to me about it. So we go walking. She’s young, Black, and shorter than me. I encourage her not to stop writing. She feels like it’s become a waste. I ask her, “But if you don’t write, how will you know what you think? Isn’t that important to you?”

She repeats what I say. We’ve been walking on a trail. Now we come to a bunch of teens. They’re crowding around a bush. Dozens of tiny black insects buzz through the air. “The hornets are back,” one teen says. “Look, they’re building a nest.”

He indicates a space inside a bush. I look. Yes, the little black things are building a thing that looks like a miniature beehive. I’ve never seen anything like it. I wonder if these are really wasps. I don’t really know.

Dream ends.

0

The Writing Moment

Haven’t done anything today but read and write. My sense of an ending wasn’t working for me. I had some vague directional ideas but decided to delve back into the manuscript to refresh myself and let my Muse Neurons do their thing. Four hours later, with some bio breaks, I’d read several hundred pages, surprising myself with what I’d written. Work needed, sure. Nothing major spoke up, though.

And then, like that, I saw the full ending land a foothold. Saw how what I wrote as the ending was the beginning of the end but that there are more pages to be written to complete the story. Epiphanies upon epiphanies fell across my mind with dizzying speed and completeness. Just need to remember them. Write them. Hang on for the rest of the ride.

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The Writing Moment

I went to put in the changes in the manuscript which emerged after this morning’s dream review. I ended up instead reading the first 100 pages, fixing the odd typo. Astonishing experience. Like, I wrote this? It felt like I was reading a novel, and a lot of it seemed new to me. Yet, there was a yang part which remembered writing all of this. Fascinating experience. The other part, as I read, was how the main character changed and changed and changed, growing into the person I’m now so familiar with. Her voice changed. The novel’s voice changed. Just fascinating to reflect. Yes, just like driving through the dark, through a dark and stormy night of unfamiliar land, and then getting up in sunshine and looking back to see where you had been.

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The Writing Moment

I suffered from writer’s block this past week. Yes, it’s real. Writer’s block exists. And it affected me.

I traveled with my wife to Pennsylvania to see Mom and celebrate her 90 natal day celebration and see family last week. I thought I’d write on the side. But no. Each time I sat down to write, my phone would ping with a text or ring with a call. I love ’em, of course, and was happy to do whatever favor was being asked, and appreciated getting updates, but The Writing Neurons were not as accepting.

Even on the flights, I had writer’s block. I pulled out my computer. Set it up. Began writing and typing.

Tap, tap, tap.

Wife: “How do I turn the volume up?”

Tap, tap, tap.

Wife: “I can’t get my tray up.”

Tap, tap, tap.

Wife: “Can you open this bottle for me?”

Tap, tap, tap.

Flight attendant: “Would you like more wine, sir?”

Yes, I know, I’m really stretching the complaining envelope here.

It’s good to be back in my cossetted, coveted writing routine. The Writing Neurons had become manic about getting more of the novel-in-progress written, pinging me via the headnet with new insights and plot points.

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

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The Writing Moment

I’m still working on a novel. Finished one earlier this year and edit and revise it when free time gestures, do it. Meanwhile, I’m writing another. Thought I’d have it finished by September’s middle. Did. Not. Happen. I wrote an ending but it didn’t work. Yet it did work.

Why it didn’t work… Well, it wasn’t satisfying. None of the characters liked it. Especially the protagonist. You wouldn’t believe her reaction. The Writing Neurons were also pissed by the ending, and also let me know.

Hush, hush, I told them all. That was just the climax. Now I’ll write a denouement and all will be well. You’ll see.

Snorting, the Writing Neurons muttered, “Bullshit.” The Muses were more restrained, expressing their WTF doubts with a smirk.

Ignoring them, I pressed on. That’s when I realized why the ending did work. It did work because I had to get it out of me. It also worked because I saw that I was aiming toward the end of one story line, involving the main person, but there was a larger story line that needed an ending. I’d become so focused on my main person, I overlooked that other story line.

When I wrote that ending for the story, I killed one trending direction. Doing so freed the character to take over. Completely unaware of where I was going, like trying to find the bathroom in an unfamiliar, pitch-black house, every new paragraph was a challenge. I often rewrote paragraphs several times, trying to figure out what they meant. Is that how novel writing is supposed to go? I actually think so.

Now, I think I see the real ending. I don’t say that too loudly. Don’t want to piss off the protagonist, Muses, and Writing Neurons. It’s hard enough keeping them all in line and moving in the same direction. Like herding angry feral cats.

Got my coffee and a table. Got my ‘puter. Time to continue writing like crazy, at least one more time.

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