Dreams

I’m mostly a nightmare gal. Have far too many bad dreams. Several a night.

Wake up screaming at a man in the doorway, or by the window, a lot.

Elevator-with-no-sides dreams. An elevator that’s tilting.

Zombie dreams. My aunt’s head in a watermelon. My girls missing.

The dreams where I’m walking from room to room in house. Searching. Hurrying. Worrying.

Knowing something bad is behind a door.

Being lost.

Oh, and the cloven hoof dream that Kyra wants me to share on FB.

But last night. Last night was good.

I haven’t written now in a month. Not at all (except an editor rewrite).

And last night I dreamed of the books that are waiting for me.

Wanting to be written.

There was that feeling I have when I sit down to write and things are going well. A feeling of being content.

When there’s hope.

A new world coming to life.

Like the way I feel because there are a few moments when I am in control, ’cause I know what’s happening a few pages ahead.

This morning, I woke up smiling.

Woke up with an email almost fully formed to my agent.

Woke to a whole list of books that were calling for me.

With thoughts of really writing.

This morning, I’m ready.

To find a few new characters.

Clean up a few scenes.

Investigate a few possibilities.

This morning is full of promises.

Way better, I tell ya, than that man in the doorway.

 

The Sweat Tears are Made of

Last night I dreamed I was in a camp of poets.

We made bread. And washed a lot of cutting boards. In fact, I only remember washing the cutting boards and seeing the finished loaves.

There was a head poet, bread maker, cutting board washer. She had long blonde hair and had really lived life.

I could tell by looking at her.

There were bubbles in these huge sinks, but only a few, because poets are more natural than I am and don’t use half a bottle of Dawn per sink load.

Also there were these handmade bars of washing soap.

I now remember there was no butter. (What?! All that bread! No butter!)

Anyway, there were wooden tables and the room was massive and then, at one point, I whispered, “This is the sweat tears are made of.”

I woke up right then, and still feeling poetic, I thought, “Wow.”

Now I’m fully awake I still feel the same way.

Wow.

Life and dreams gives you amazing things to work with if you are a writer, a bread maker, a cutting board washer.

A poet.

Especially a poet.

Some of life makes you weep. Like yesterday. I cried so much yesterday, my eyes are swollen today.

Sometimes life gives you a Pulitzer Prize line that comes in a dream.

Knowing what’s best to use in your writing, that’s the key.

For example, I used to dream about aliens  covered in hair, who snapped whips to find me, because they were blind. They lived in the bed of a semi.

Once I dreamed I cut open a watermelon and my aunt’s head was in it.

I’ve dreamed plenty of times I’m in an elevator that has no walls that tips to the side after I get on it.

Of all those dreams, I’ve only used one in a book.

As writers we get to pick and choose what’s best for our novels. Every word, every detail, every bit of dialog must move our stories forward.

No wasted words. Cut cut cut.

The sweat that tears are made of means we need to sweat over what we write. Cry over it.
Think it’s crap. See beauty in it. Go get real butter, maybe Amish butter, for the bread of life called our books. Because the sweat could be the words and so could the tears.

No guessing around.

No wondering.

What we write needs to make sense by the end.

Let the sweat and tears pay off.

That’s what a writer does, man.

 

 

 

Night Dreams – by Debbie Nance

I don’t usually remember my night dreams—that is unless I get woken up in the middle of one.

 So when I do remember a dream, for the fun of it, I try to figure out if it has any meaning.

 For instance, in the middle of one night last week my hubby’s phone beeped to indicate the battery was low, and I woke up. I had been dreaming that I was in college, sitting at a desk and the professor called on me to read. When I opened my textbook, about an inch of the pages were missing, cut from the book, including the part I was supposed to read.

 The next night I again woke up, for an unknown reason, and I was having a similar dream of being unprepared for a college class.

 Then one day this week I didn’t sleep through my wake up alarm so I could remember a third dream. I was at a family reunion for my dad’s side of the family, only when I looked around, I didn’t know anyone. I asked a boy, about six years old, what his name was. He told me and I didn’t recognize his last name. I asked who his father was, and the boy told me, but I didn’t know him either. So I asked the boy who his grandfather was and the boy said, “I don’t know.” 

 Strange, huh, three remembered dreams.

 They must mean something.

 Maybe the first two were related to my work to complete the updated WIFYR website.  http://www.wifyr.com/  Maybe the third meant that I was in the wrong place. Or maybe all three dreams just mean that I’m not sleeping well. J

 Do you think your dreams have meanings?

 Do your book characters have special or weird dreams?

 Write a scene where your character has a dream, or nightmare, and how it affects his or her day.

 Watch this old Friends sitcom episode for ideas and/or a laugh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EomKbf9gks

  And, finally, a good quote from Rita Mae Brown, tweaked for the day:  “Never hope [dream] more than you work.”

 

 

Dre . . .e . . .e . . .e . . . am, Dream, Dream, Dream Plus an Important PS

So this morning, early, I had two dreams.

Number One– Zombies.

I’m not kidding.

Why?

I don’t watch those scary movies, so why?

First part of the dream I was with Cait and we were in this mall where we had to grow and share food as a community and we were gathering our greens.  I had picked a few lettuce leaves and then I went to this plant–pineapple mint–I guess, and no one had touched it because it had pineapple fruit pieces hanging from it.

I tried one. Yummy.

Then all the zombies came in the mall and there were tons of them and I was fighting and fighting.

And they were slow-changing zombies because I bashed one in the head and she said. “Ow, now I have a headache.”

I awoke, scared.

The second dream I had to go and get a job and Ann Dee suggested I work for her rich friend.

And her rich friend was so mean to me, but I had to have the job.

She had a bunch of bratty kids.

And the woman kept running me down AND she was super stuck up.

Anyway, when she pushed out another stove I was going to have to cook on because she had so many kids (it was a gas stove), she said something rude and I can’t remember what, but I said, “You are such a bith (only I said the REAL word) and then I threw down the gas stove electric plug and said, “I don’t need your crummy job. AND, by the way, I am Ann Dee’s best friend.” And she said, “No, I am.”

I left.

So, today’s challenge–work a dream into your story.

PS I will NOT be at the library in Orem because I have a signing at the library in Provo. 7 pm.