If a dream is a wish your heart makes…

…why did I dream about a family with 14 (or 16) children? Hmm. We won’t worry about that. You know, thinking about it, the worst part was that the mother in the dream was the one who gave me the 14-16 figure for the number of kids. At least COUNT the poor dears.

Lately I’ve had some crazy dreams. A couple of nights ago, I was so aware of being completely bored and disgruntled by my dreams. Usually they’re at least sort of intriguing, so a night full of boredom and dullness really made me mad. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, “Thank God! I can start a new dream!”

But last night’s was probably the funniest (or weirdest?) dream-awareness I’ve ever had. And I’m pretty sure I can say that it comes directly from my waking life these days.

There was some situation in progress–I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. But as the dream went on, I gained an overarching awareness that there was no logical conclusion to this dream.

“What can the third act be?” I thought. “There’s no possible way for this to wrap up that is satisfying and interesting.”

Yes, my subconscious self was analyzing the narrative drive of my dream.

Is it any wonder I need a nap every day lately? (And no, there is not a “secret” reason for me to need naps. Mom.)

The simple fact is, thinking up stories makes me so tired. All of the dog training books tell you that a great way to “exercise” your dog is to spend a half hour training and working on tricks. This, the books say, tires out their little walnut-brains to the point where they will just collapse into bed.

This is me! Thinking up twists and turns and trying to connect them all is very taxing to my little walnut brain. In wake AND in sleep, apparently.

But it’s still the best job in the world! (And yes, I’m still on the treadmill!)

7 comments July 20th, 2010

7 Quick Takes, No. 2

Bonus Winston picture!

(That’s from when he was allowed on the bed, before his endless and powerful leaning sent all of the humans in the house running to the chiropractor.)

#1
Since there were only two people willing to enter my Music Meme contest (and one of them didn’t really enter… just provided an amusing commentary on my music library), I’m declaring them both winners! Hurray for Tom and Tracy!

#2
My dreams are getting crazier. Starting with the top blowing off my clothes dryer and leaving a hole in my ceiling (through which you could see that my house was about 200 feet tall, strangely), which we later determined to have happened because someone set the dryer at 800 degrees, at which point we were all like, “Well of COURSE the dryer’s going to blow up when it’s set to 800 degrees.”

But the weird part was, at some point in my dream, I thought, “I don’t want there to be a hole in my ceiling. I don’t like this dream. There is no hole in my ceiling.” But the last part wasn’t so much a statement of fact as a statement of intention. This has happened a few times in recent memory–I decide in my dream to change what I’m dreaming. It’s not like I do it on purpose in a conscious way. I guess my subconscious is just tired of getting jerked around.

Then I dreamed that the two older sisters from Full House were singing “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music.

#3
The insane 9-episode season of Big Love is over. Am I the only person who’s a little relieved? I’ve read interviews (totally spoilerific: found here and here) in which the producers acknowledge that this season was a crazy ride, and how they kind of did it on purpose. As an author, I can relate to the idea that sometimes you just want to get from Point A to Point B without agonizing, but I’m hoping the show chills out a bit next season. I can’t take so much drama in my televised dramas!

#4
I am working on something super secret and fun with a couple of very nice people, and that’s all I can say except that I’m thuper geeked about it! Will post more when I can.

#5
We got a new couch, as I mentioned the other day. Well, here’s our solution to the Winston-on-the-new-couch problem: we keep the whole thing covered in blankets, 100% of the time. Voila! I mean, never mind that we could have just laid a bunch of foam down on a couch-shaped stack of cinderblocks and achieved the same effect. (When we get the accessories for the room, like a rug and a new side table, we will probably uncover the couch.)

#6
Yesterday, Oprah did a show about making an effort to be more conscious in our food choices. She featured author Michael Pollan, who wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma as well as some other great books that I highly recommend checking out. Reading Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle totally changed the way I think about food. Especially where it comes from and how the animals involved are treated during their lives. Fascinating and definitely worth a read!

#7
I’m currently reading The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton. Next up: The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan and The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr, which I’m going to pick up at the library this afternoon. Hurray! I am falling back into my old reading-addict ways and loving it.

Happy Friday!

9 comments March 12th, 2010

Where’s Whoopi Goldberg when you need her?

The other night, I was downstairs in the sewing room, working on various blog-related stuff. The husb was off at a work event without a definitive end time. Winston was next to me, asleep in his crate.

So at some point, I heard the husb walking around upstairs. I figured he’d come down and say hi, but he didn’t, so I figured I’d go up and say hi in a minute. I heard him sit down and figured he was going to watch some TV. After a while, beset by guilt, I decided to go upstairs and hang out with him.

As I went up the stairs, I saw that the TV wasn’t on. And the bedroom door was open, but the light was off. It occurred to me that maybe he’d been really tired and gone to sleep.

But he wasn’t home.

I would have bet $1,000 that he was home.

But he wasn’t. All the doors were locked, and a quick look around revealed that there wasn’t anyone else in the house (thank God).

So I am still puzzling over it a little, thinking it was either car doors slamming outside or maybe air piping through the heating system, or some other random explanation.

That’s what my conscious self is doing, anyway.

My subconscious self? It’s all, “GHOST. GHOST WAS HERE.” So now I have dreams about ghosts. If a dog barks across the neighborhood at 3 a.m., I wake up and think, “GHOST.” And last night I woke up thinking I heard a woman whispering, “Oh… Katie.”

As soon as my conscious self is awake enough, it takes over. But what a naughty subconscious I have this week!

I mean, honestly.

5 comments January 28th, 2009

Onward and upward…

Project X is going along swimmingly. It’s just pouring out of me, which is an alien sensation.

Confession time: I’m not what you could call a fast writer. I mean, when I’m writing, it’s fast, but I have a hard time planting myself in the seat and actually doing it. If I hit a wall, I run and hide from it, sometimes for weeks. I see other authors’ blogs where they talk about cheerfully (or torturously) churning out a book in three weeks, six weeks, three months. And I’ve always thought that clearly at some point I swallowed the blue pill instead of the red one.

But here is a different situation, and I’m quite intrigued, and I’m kind of having fun letting myself write compulsively and quickly. One fun thing about this book is that the story doesn’t hinge on the details of the plot–X doesn’t need to lead to Y and then Z, and if you change Y and Z and then X doesn’t fit in, you are at an impasse. This book is more about the characters–who did what to whom and who said what to whom and what they did about it and what happens next and so on.

We’ll see if it’s all worth anything, in the end, but for now I’m going to go with the flow.

It’s sort of a lesson of “don’t put yourself in a box”–maybe I could cheerfully (or torturously) churn out a manuscript in two months (let’s face it: three weeks might be forever out of my range).

I guess we’ll find out!

Last night I dreamed that a pirate ship was coming to attack, and the husb was an officer on the ship that was going to go out and fight them. The captain of the ship and his wife were very elegant and genteel, and when I asked if I could go say good-bye to the husb before they left port, the captain refused, because he had seen the husb’s gigantic bushy beard and figured he was the second assistant cook or something, instead of realizing that he was an officer. I’m sure I didn’t help matters by not being genteel or elegant myself.

This probably ties into the fact that yesterday the husb finally got around to tidying up his facial hair and the bathroom looked like a small furry animal had exploded.

Happy Thursday!

5 comments February 7th, 2008

Wooooooooo, scary!

Happy Halloween! Last night I had a panicky dream that we didn’t have any of our Christmas decorations up yet. (I must secretly be a department store — oh, snap!) And I came home and the husb was taping Happy Birthday streamers to multicolored balloons. At least he was trying.

I made myself a really simple skirt yesterday out of Halloween fabric, but this morning I have to tackle Winston’s costume. I don’t know what to make him. Last year we were both Dalmatians.

I’ve been letting the book sit for a few days while I decompress… I have to jump back in soon, probably this weekend. I’m sure I’ll find tons of stuff to change. That’s just the way it is. The thing is, I get it in the best shape possible before I send it in — I really do ask myself, “Would you want it published exactly the way it is?” And by the time I send it off to an editor, the answer is, “Yes, if it had to be.” Because while it would be wonderful to hear that I am a perfect writer and got everything right the first try, I like feedback and I like having the input of an editor. So far, between the Lovely Editor and the Delightful Editor, I don’t feel that the book has been led astray at any point.

So that’s good. And that means editors’ notes aren’t scary to me… But yesterday I did take a peek back at the first couple of chapters of the WIP — now that’s scary. Both the prospect of finishing it AND the prospect of revising it.

Have a good day! Anybody dressing up?

3 comments October 31st, 2007

How authors really make their living.

Last night, I dreamed that Therese Fowler and Pat Wood tried to get me to rob a bank with them. I initially agreed, but then there was an announcement, really more of a plea, stating that there was word of an intended bank robbery and would the robbers please reconsider? I did change my mind, and then I had to call Therese and tell her, and she said, “I knew what you were going to say.” And she was pretty gracious about it, but I was a little worried they were going to send a hitman after me.

I think I had too much caffeine with dinner.

Speaking of dreams, the night before last, I dreamed that we were doing the 48-Hour Film Festival again, trying to come up with a script. And the woman I was on a team with (whoever she was) had this really terrible idea, and I kept saying, “What’s the conflict? What’s the conflict?” and she said, “He tells her he doesn’t like the barbecue sauce,” and then when I insisted that this was not enough to carry a story, she fired me from the team.

I’m not sure if there’s a conclusion to be drawn from this or not, except maybe that I took this blog entry over at Pub Rants more seriously than I knew at the time.

We have friends in town. They are seeing the sights while I see the monitor on my desk over at the dog show.

Maybe I should change my mind about that bank thing.

4 comments July 6th, 2007

A bit of this and a bit of that and a song about birds.

You know you were cut out for a life of luxury when nature creates you with a built-in sleep mask.

Last night I dreamed that I got to see the cover of my book. It looked like a Dr. Phil book — a red background with a photo on the front, and the title at the bottom in a very conservative gold/brown print. I immediately freaked out and started suggesting changes. In my dream, I even explained the Photoshop techniques for achieving the end I had in mind. It was probably a pretty cool cover.

My title is probably changing, but more on that later.

I am off and writing on the next book. This one is different; I was trying to decide third person or first, and I settled on first person present tense. It fits the character and her situation, I think. I feel like I’m writing without a net, but I think that’s how I always feel. I am also going to do a little more mapping out of this book than I usually do, but that will come in the near future. I need to get inside the character’s head for a while first.

Dog show is in progress once more. It’s funny, because there are other shows at my company, and some producer from another show said something jokey about the dog shows. This person was immediately shut down (as the tale was told to me, at least). The thing is, doing something 20+ times does not make it easier — not if you want every show to be better than the last. It makes it more challenging. You are always setting out to conquer your previous effort.

Thanks for all the bird sympathy. A friend at work, on hearing about the birds, said, “Oh, I have a great quote for you.” I thought it might be something like Spring is a time when life renews, and new life faces adversity and triumphs etc. etc. etc. No, her quote was something like Spring is cruel to the weak and unfit or something. It made me laugh.

I think the Indigo Girls actually said it better.

Fly Away

Fly away little bird
Any place in this open mouthed world
Begs to be fed like a bed that beckons you, but you won’t rest
Everyone’s got a need to go
Most of us stick with our row to hoe
But not you, you’re the black crow
With a straight line, and no time
For the birds of prey who wreck your nest
Twice your size steal your best
They set you on this course of your collision

I am a stop along your way
I am the words you’ll never say
I crossed the great beyond of fear
I opened my eyes and saw us there, what a view
You went there too

Fly away little bird
Find the song in you that no one’s heard
Strenghthen your wings as you sing your solo flight
Through this short life
Everyone’s got a deep regret
We try to ground ourselves to forget
But your race to the end is neck and neck
You love them, you love them not
The birds of prey who wreck your nest,
Twice your size steal your best
They set you on this course of your collision

I am a stop along your way
I am the words you’ll never say
I crossed the great beyond of fear
Opened my eyes and saw us there, what a view
And you went there too

But all along your chosen path are
Window panes and sheets of glass
That you won’t see
You fly too fast
One day it will be over

Fly away little bird
The saddest song I ever heard
Was the one I wrote you in my heart
That never made it to the world.

April 19th, 2007

Thanks a lot, resting brain!

Last night in my dream I went to this… place. I don’t know what it was. A restaurant or something? Anyway, the girl that worked there came up to me and said, “Wow! You’re wearing an extra ten pounds in your face.”

(Die, wench!)

Then she hugged me, and proclaimed that my body could use some help, but that things could be worse.

Which is how everyone likes to start off their Friday, am I right?

February 16th, 2007

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

Untrue, I did not dream I went to Manderley.

I dreamed I went to the Jersey Shore.

I have never been to the Jersey Shore. I have never particularly wanted to go. But in my dream, I somehow ended up there, scrambling out of the water, trying to beat the rising tide up the sand. And far off in the distance were these strikingly beautiful mountains, similar to the Alps. And all of a sudden I knew why people liked the Jersey Shore so much, and talked about going “down the Shore”.

I’m afraid to really look up a picture. What if New Jersey really is that beautiful and I’ve been missing out all my life?

January 22nd, 2007

Deep thoughts from a dream:

From a written list of story ideas, long missing, that in my dream I found:

“What if that lady who looks like your mommy is staring at you because she IS your mommy?!?”

December 14th, 2006