Nancy Said
The Golden Egg Dream
I started out with a dream about eggs. Not surprising, given that Easter is soon. Coloring eggs was an entertaining annual experience when I was a child. We always had a big bowl of colored hard-boiled eggs for Easter.
But my dream eggs weren’t colored. I was looking for eggs, first in the kitchen refrigerator, which was an old, white Kelvinator model. Not finding the eggs in the refrigerator, I went out a side door to where I knew there was supposed to be a chicken coop.
I stepped out onto a small porch painted gray and went down rickety steps to a green hillside. Cumulonimbus clouds were mounding against a blue sky, partially obscuring the sun. A strong wind was blowing, whipping my jacket around me. People on the dream’s periphery were trying to draw my attention to other things going on. They had somewhere they wanted to go. It seemed like they were back in the house. Exasperated, I kept telling them, “Just a minute, I’m looking for eggs.” I was becoming angrier as they kept heckling me, refusing to be patient as I searched for eggs.
Entering a sagging chicken coop made of old graying lumber (I’ve never been in a chicken coop in my life), I finally saw some eggs, and then I saw a dusty half-hidden egg. It looked like gold. Disbelieving, I picked it up. Amazingly heavy, it taxed my strength. I had to use two hands to hold it. Wiping the dust away by rubbing the egg against my shirt, I confirmed, yep, it’s gold. The more I polished it, the shinier it became. As heavy as it was, I thought, it has to be solid. I couldn’t imagine anything being inside of it.
Unsure whether I should, I took the egg out to show the others. It was sunnier, but colder and windier outside. Nobody else was out there and the house was silent. I realized the others were gone. The dream ended with me standing alone by the chicken coop holding a golden egg. I awoke feeling isolated and alone.
Tweaking My Amygdala
After reading about how doing exercises in imagining positive outcomes can affect the influence of right amygdala and reduce your fear, anxiety, and worry, I decided to do such an exercise while walking today in preparation for my writing session.
In the exercise that I read and remember most sharply, people were asked to imagine that they were Superman. Bullets bounced off them. They could fall off cliffs and not be harmed, which made sense, as they could also fly.
So often, it’s my own doubt and lack of confidence that undermines me and my writing efforts. Like many folks, the impostor syndrome shadows my life, with the attendant fears that I have no talent, intelligence, or ability (sound familiar, writers?), and that exposure as a fraud is imminent. I wanted to counter those effects with positive visualization. Of course, I don’t know how I’ll measure the impact of what I did. I awoke feeling pretty damn confident, optimistic, and hopeful (I know – I exist with a complex dichotomy of feelings and thoughts), and I write almost every day, regardless of my mood. What I really need is a team to test me, check on my amygdala, and give me updates. Barring that happening, I’ll assume it’s working and drink my coffee.
Coffee always helps.
Almost always.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
The Australian Dream
It was another wild night of dreams, with this one making a deeper and more lasting impression.
I found myself in another land. After meeting a man and speaking with him, I realized I was in Australia. My wife was also present. No reason for being in Australia was given, but I was pleased. I’ve always wanted to go to Australia, and have just missed several times. I still plan to go.
Anyway, in the dream, I was given some papers that turned out to actually be a little book. I didn’t know what to do with it or why I had it. Reading it didn’t help because it seemed incomplete, and my wife couldn’t figure it out, either. Finding another fellow, I asked him about it, and he showed me how it was a continuation of other documents. He said they were living documents, and took me to a huge wall of like documents. After he explained it, I was excited and explained it to my wife. She wasn’t interested.
I was then informed I had to get to another part of Australia. I hopped into a car and began driving, trying to figure out where I was going as I went. The roads were holed and shoddy. Most of them were like slick mud. As I complained about them to myself and merged onto a highway that was also like slick mud, I was overtaken by cars. They passed at shockingly high speeds. “I forgot they don’t have speed limits here,” I said to myself in the dream car, accelerating to match the pace while I looked for signs and directions.
I found myself out of the car and running. Everyone was running. Instead of driving, we were running everywhere. I was still on the highway and looking for where I was going. Somehow, running, I found it and arrived.
People were there, but it was no one that I recognized. They gave me more books. Where all the other books were white, these books were red. I immediately understood that these were new books, and that I had to take them back to the other location, which I did right away. That pleased the people on the other end. Understanding the books and system at a fast rate, I took on the role of explaining to others how these books continued the stories.
Everyone was told to line up to go somewhere else, part of some planned activities. I got in line and found that I was at the line’s beginning, with my wife beside me. As I started to go, I encountered the first man that had given me the books in the beginning. He and I exchanged some comments, and I told him that I knew how the books worked. That made him happy, and he let me go. As I walked through the gate with my wife into a green field bordered by a white picket fence, I realized that he’d been my teacher.
The Winding Road
As the current sub-plot and story line of my work in progress winds along like a leisurely country drive, I curb impatience to be done. If I had to describe myself, impatient is a word I’d consistently employ. I’m continuously monitoring and struggling with my impatient urges to be done, to move on, to get there, to get finished, etc.
Today, motoring through the scenes I planned to write, I realized that I wasn’t as close to being finished with the work in progress that I’d hoped and believed. I’m enjoying writing it. It’s weird to say that it’s a leisurely write, because I write several thousand words a day (knock on wood – don’t want to scare off the muses), and edit it every day. Yes, I’m a writer that edits as I go, because my writing is an organic garden in progress, and requires constant attention. I usually edit the volume in progress (number four), but sometimes jump back and edit the others. They’re all beta, and will require more work when they’re done before they’re finished.
I want this series done so I can go on to other books that I’ve begun or planned. One is from a story idea a fan sent me. “What can you do with this concept?” she asked. Answering her, I ended up writing about forty pages. I stumbled across it last night, and enjoyed what I read, and remembered what else was planned, and I feel like I owe her to finish it.
The second project that I want to continue is the third novel in my Life Lessons mystery series. Readers of the first two books have asked several times, “When is the third one coming out?” Soon, I promise, as soon as I finish this work in progress. I’d written five chapters of it before getting distracted by the current concept, and read some of that last night, and remembered, “Oh, yes, there’s so much to write here.” I had several more sequels planned in the series and had a broad outline of that developed. And, as I write this fourth volume of the current WIP, a fifth volume keeps tugging on my sleeve.
Not enough time, you know? Those are just a few of the dozen items in the writing bucket. But, c’est le vie, this is the writing life.
Now time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
