My Dream Home

Daily writing prompt

Write about your dream home.

My original dream home was the home I grew up in. I grew up in an older, architect-designed (as opposed to kit home) place with big bedrooms and plenty of project space in the basement. It was full of beautiful wooden trim and old metal heating registers and high ceilings. My parents did a lot of things with it I wouldn’t have, like torn out butler’s cabinets and bookcases built into the walls, but it was a beautiful house when we finally refinished it.

The house I currently live in is an echo of that house, a newer house (built 1919 rather than 1906), with simpler trim and a dining room set off from the living room by glass-paned French doors. The build is similar, although there are only three bedrooms instead of four.

My dream home has changed over the years, as I have gotten older and look forward to getting older still. My current dream home would be all on one level to help with mobility issues. It would be universal design, where the design would facilitate living independently without looking institutional. No stairs, accessible bathrooms, open floorplan, lever-style door knobs, and the like. It would also be energy efficient, perhaps built into the side of a hill or with passive solar heating design. A dream home would have a rocket mass stove in the living room to heat up the area and provide a focal point for the room (they’re very pretty pieces of masonry). And it would have a greenhouse where I could start seeds for the year, and a yard I could landscape.

I dream big. I’m not going to find a house like this, especially if I stay in Maryville. I could build one, but it wouldn’t sell well if I ever had to leave it. Plus I’m not rich, and this would be an expensive build. So my dream house is best left to dreaming about.

“… surreal, but not very impressionistic …”

I wish I was better at poetry, lacking the impressionistic bent I need to write the type of poetry that is in fashion right now. I am too involved in telling stories in a more straightforward fashion, even when I am writing dreams:

Last night, I dreamed I was walking after dark, late at night, armed with a pair of scissors. Someone approached me and put his hands on me, and I flipped him over my shoulder and then held my scissors at his jugular^*. He apologized and ran away. I walked and walked till daylight, and I found myself at my old alma mater^** wearing a white blazer and a skirt too tight for me. I ran into a couple of colleagues from my current job as a professor, who were going to a lecture together at a conference. I didn’t get the impression that they wanted me there, and I felt self-conscious because of the clothing and my weight anyhow. I walked out of the conference, which was held in the student union where I went to college. I walked to where my office used to be when I was in graduate school, which ended up being the mailboxes in my former department here where I currently teach. The mailboxes were no longer there, but I walked down the hall to find where they were located back at my alma mater.

This is surreal, but not very impressionistic. I could make it impressionistic, but it would aggravate me. What is happening? What happens next? I love poetry, but I can’t make it happen. My poetry is too concrete.

^* By jugular, I meant where I think the jugular is. I’m really not sure where it is.

^** for non-English speakers, “alma mater” is a Latin phrase that we use to describe the school we graduated from, usually college.

Dreams to Goals

I’ve said in an earlier post that I make goals, not resolutions. The reason I gave was that resolutions are not actionable (I didn’t put it exactly this way, but that’s it in a nutshell.) A resolution is “I’m going to do this one vague thing”, and without a plan and the ability to revise it, it’s just a wish. A goal is the path to success.

On the other hand, my idea of making plans instead of resolutions isn’t very aspirational. It focuses on the prosaic mind, the part of existence that Gets It Done. How does that prosaic mind know what to get done? Through manipulating dreams into goals. “I would love it if…” becomes “I will do this” and a goal is born. From “How do I make this happen?” the goal becomes the basis for a plan.

I might as well admit I have dreams. I’m superstitious about admitting them, because I’ve been ridiculed over them as a child. But without the dreams, my goals become repetitive, maintenance-based, and dull. So here are my dreams for the year:

I dream of being traditionally published.
I dream of having enough readership of my works that my name is recognized.
I dream of having enough readership to make it worthwhile to have a booth at Gatewaycon.
I dream of getting royalty payments from Amazon.

Lightning hasn’t struck me; I guess it’s okay to admit my dreams.

Taking the first dream as an example, let’s turn it into a goal:

I dream of getting traditionally published > I will submit a query to agents.

(Agents are gatekeepers to the traditional publishing process. Queries are the bundles of materials writers submit for their consideration. That bundle includes a cover letter, excerpts of the work in question, and a synopsis).

I will submit a query to agents > I develop a plan to do so; carry out the plan.

This is how the dream becomes a plan.

The one thing is that the execution of the plan doesn’t always mean success. This could be because of internal factors inside myself that need correction, problems with the plan that need fixing, or external factors that can be controlled for. And, sometimes, external factors beyond my control. The more outside factors beyond one’s control, the more likely the dream will stay at the dream stage. For example, if I dream of winning the lottery, there’s not much I can do to actually win it beyond buying one or more tickets.

New Year’s Day, I will set up goals based on these dreams and develop them into plans as I go through the year. It’s more fun dreaming them, but not as fruitful. Wish me luck.

Need Ideas for Writing!

Where do my ideas come from?

Most of my ideas, strangely enough, come from dreams, and I haven’t had any inspiring dreams lately (except for the one last night where Jason Momoa helped me with an awkward yard task and then winked at me.) I write fantasy and science fiction with a strong relationship (one might call it romance) element, so dreams about unusual happenings or intriguing strangers (not counting Jason Momoa) tend to provoke my dreams.

My imagination of course fuels and expounds upon these dreams. A certain “what if” element comes into play. What if there was a collective in the middle of nowhere that had to keep its reality secret? What if a woman’s annihilating power was disguised as a mental illness? What if the end of the world could be triggered by killing one person?

The well has run dry

Here’s my frustration — I haven’t come up with any new ideas lately. This could be because I’m just coming off a semester; it may be because I’m doing very well with my moods; it could be because nobody intriguing has visited my dreams (not counting Jason Momoa). I have been assigned by an editor I met to start writing short stories for submission until I can get some traction on my novels.

LOS ANGELES, CA – DECEMBER 12: Jason Momoa arrives at the premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Aquaman” at the Chinese Theatre on December 12, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

What are the solutions?

One thing I’ve done is write new stories based on the already written ones. This is why I have four novels and 10 short stories dealing with the universe of Archetypes. I have been charged with writing short stories, however, and I need to get out of my world and write standalone stories rather than “reader magnets”. One solution writers often use is writing prompts, or phrases/sentences providing an idea for the writer to go forth with. a couple of my favorite short stories were written on prompts (not about Jason Momoa). Another solution, one that I will be using today, is bouncing ideas off my husband (who is not Jason Momoa).

My request to you

I would love it if you threw me some story prompts to write with, hopefully fantasy (and not with Jason Momoa).

I need ideas!

I made 50k (50 editing hours) for Camp NaNo yesterday, and I’m almost done editing Reclaiming the Balance, which is in part a parable about how “woke” people can sometimes get caught being prejudicial of a new situation. It’s also a story about a love affair between a sculptor and a beautiful, truly androgynous being who was “born yesterday” as an adult. I guess it’s also a story about how our pasts cripple us in the present.

I feel a need for more ideas. Short stories this time, because I have enough novels, or so I’ve been told. My idea of stories, though, are mystical, mythical, and at times provocative.

I need some good, weird dreams as material to write. That’s how I’ve gotten my best novels. I need something new to write stories about — most of my short stories are about the world around Barn Swallows’ Dance (the fictitious ecocollective that keeps many secrets); one takes place in the Kringle world. I need to write some standalones to submit to journals and other outfits.

What I need is some time to think. I should have some of that this summer.

Interpreting dreams

Do you analyze your dreams?

I analyze my dreams to see what my mind is working on while I’m asleep. I don’t adhere to Freudian dream analysis (everything relates to sex — I’m kidding, but barely) because it doesn’t speak to me. I tend to use Gestalt dream analysis, as it relates to storytelling and yields a satisfying result.

Like so many things regarding dreams, we don’t know if Gestalt dream analysis “works”. But it has given me insight into the meaning of my dreams.

How to do Gestalt dream analysis: First, you have to remember your dreams. Chances are, like most dreamers, you forget your dreams when you wake up. The good news is that the ones you remember are the most vivid. One source I’ve consulted says that you’re more likely to remember your dreams if you wake up with an alarm clock a few minutes before your natural wakeup time. (This works for me because my demon kitten bites my toes to wake me up.) You should also have a notepad and paper next to the bed to write it down.

Once you’ve recorded or remembered that dream (and here is the fun part), tell the story of the dream from the viewpoint of every significant person and thing featured in the dream. It’s great to write this down, for reasons I’ll explain later.

Last night I had a dream where I almost fed the cats a slice of Boston brown bread, which is a whole-grain and molasses quick bread with raisins. (The important part of this is that the raisins are toxic to cats.) I almost feed the cats the quick bread, but I remember that raisins are toxic to cats. A bit later, my husband comes in and tells me the cats are dying. I run in and the cats (which are now kittens) are dead and nothing we can do will revive them.

I went to some gathering which looked like a bunch of women painting backdrops and posters for a charity event and I tried to talk to one of them about my cats dying, but nobody was willing to talk.I can’t remember which cat is still alive so I call my husband and ask. I tried to find a place to sit down and nobody would let me sit. I went home and tried to accuse my husband of feeding the cats raisins.

So, Gestalt:

I am the quick bread. I am sweet but deadly to cats.
We are the cats. We are dying. There is nothing you can do about it.
I am your husband. I feel helpless about the cats dying. I don’t know what to do. I swear I didn’t feed them the raisins.
We are your peers. We can’t be bothered hearing about your cats.
We are the posters for your charity event. We’re the important thing, not your cats.
The one remaining cat: I don’t know who I am.

From this, I compare the dream to my life to find interpretation.

The cats represent life and all the things I can’t control
I tend to blame my husband for things that go wrong, even though he can’t control the outside either.
I have had a history of my peers not caring when I’m going through something bad — No, really, I haven’t. It’s only happened once in my adult life. This might represent a fear I have.
The posters are representative of the fact that I think my issues aren’t important.
That last cat? That’s me again — I don’t always know who I am.

A lot to unpack, but it’s unpacked. One of the reasons I write these down is that occasionally, a dream is so outstanding that I use it for a book. I want to know the symbolism as well as the visuals and the plot. I have two novels based on dreams, and I’d like to write more.

So I highly suggest you interpret your dreams and see where they take you.

Day 13 Lenten Meditation: Dance

If I don’t dance, nobody gets hurt.

It’s true. I’m preternaturally clumsy. I once broke my foot dancing. In Renaissance garb, so I looked twice as impressive in the emergency room. I could just as easily broken my partner’s foot as we took a full gallop down two lines of dancers. Renaissance dancing wasn’t very demanding, even, and I broke my foot.

I’m sure the person who wrote these meditations meant this in a spiritual sense, but this is not my metaphor. To me, “dance” means “spend three months in a cast”.

I’m kidding, sort of. I’m also the person who wrote the lyrics to the following song:

To dance naked in this pool of light
is all the moment requires of me —
eyes closed, as if I were alone
but I know you are there almost
almost close enough to touch,
almost close enough to feel
My hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air — I am not close enough
I am not close enough

In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
I am not close enough
I am not close enough

Last night I woke up from a terrible dream
I was standing lonely in the wilderness
with no one close enough to hear
but I knew you were there almost
almost close enough to touch,
almost close enough to feel
My hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air — You were not close enough
You were not close enough

In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
I am not close enough
I am not close enough

I shed my clothes to dance in light
alone, spinning wildly into sky
my hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air, and touches life
almost close enough to touch
almost close enough to feel
my hand reaches out to touch your face
I touch your hand and we are close enough
and we are close enough

In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
In dreams I dare to touch your face
we dare to look into each other’s eyes
Dreams become connection, become real
And we are close enough

Interrogating a dream and finding a poem (Literary Work)

Ethereal boy,
you would kill me with a feather
fine-sharpened to a point,
intended for my heart,
and you would call it art.

Dreams as Fertile Fields of Meaning
This poem, like many of my writings, came from a dream. In the dream, an artist acquaintance from overseas comes to visit me, spending only a brief time with me in O’Hare airport. Then he wanders off. I later read an interview with him in a snippet of newspaper that says that he planned to approach me for a film, which explained the brief interlude. It also said he considered, for the same movie, throwing a feather, quill sharpened into a dart, at my back, and if it killed me, it would be art.

Dreams are symbolic, so I woke up doubting that said acquaintance had any desire to kill me, nor could he kill me with a quill pen. As that was what he described the murder weapon as.

Gestalt Dream Analysis
Because I found the dream poetically compelling, I interrogated it using Gestalt methods, which basically instruct the dreamer to tell the story from the viewpoint of all the major people and objects:

Me: You know my part.
The artist: I play with images, I play with image. I play this scene with you, and I will not tell you why. I could stab you with this feather; fear not, it’s all illusion.
The feather: I am a pen; from me ideas flow. I am an arrow; Cupid does not miss.
The paper: There are no secrets. I announce success
The airport: I am the place where people cross, where people greet and part, the resting place between journeys.

What Does It Mean?

This dream is too complex to define linearly, so maybe I can put in place themes that don’t necessarily contradict each other:

The journey: my journey of being a writer
The artist: my inspiration/an established artist/personification of mischief/Cupid
Cupid: ludus (crush energy) as vehicle for inspiration
Brief interlude: a surprise
The newspaper: He’s arrived; I have not. Also, an implication that I have importance, but as a abstract concept
Feather pen as weapon: Cupid’s arrow, creativity, ludicrousness (see ludus); vague sexual reference but lazily so

In conclusion:

That was fun! If I had to guess, I’d say this poem is about the nature of inspiration and our muses. Ludus, sex, death are all tools of the writer, and of the artist.

Have you ever used a dream as inspiration for one of your works? Let me know in the comments or at lleachie@gmail.com

Dreams vs goals

I’ve been pretty mellow lately about my writing, getting my enjoyment from editors telling me how to improve. This is my most noble self, but my sanguinity even in the face of rejections doesn’t motivate me to push myself — for example, I haven’t sent queries lately. I haven’t finished editing Whose Hearts are Mountains (although that may need a developmental editor).

I still daydream about getting a novel published, even though I understand how hard it is, and I know I’m not a literary writer but a genre writer, and my stuff seems like it needs an endless amount of improvement …

I need to set some goals again. I’ll make them SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound.

Write/submit 5 short stories/poems/flash fiction by December 31, 2020
Get Whose Hearts are Mountains into developmental edit by March 1, 2020
Send 50 queries for Gaia’s Hands by February 1, 2020
Send 50 queries for Apocalypse by August 1, 2020

Note that my goals are in terms of what I will do (submit) rather than what might happen (publication). It’s not realistic for me to determine someone else’s actions.

I suspect I will be successful in fulfilling these goals — in general I’m very goal oriented. What I don’t know is if they’ll yield dreams come true.

Getting Practical about Dreams

Dreams don’t work the way I want them to.

For the last couple nights, I’ve been dreaming that I got picked up by a major publisher, and I felt light and strong and perhaps even validated.

Unfortunately, I know why the dreams occurred, and it wasn’t because of precognition. I’d been working all weekend in moulage, and that’s a very visible thing to be working on, and I got a lot of compliments on it. That translated in my dreams to getting recognition in my other life.

Dreams pick up little fragments of real life and sort them out in a peculiar way. I’ve read that we don’t dream of anything we haven’t encountered in real life. From my experiences, I don’t believe that unless I’ve been in a large underground city whose corridors walled in white glossy formica, accessible by a basement door in an old hunting lodge with a kitchen with avocado appliances.

I interpret my dreams, usually by a Gestalt method, telling the story from the viewpoint of each significant object (human or non) in the dream. What happened in the interpretation of the dream of the hunting lodge became the first draft of my first novel, the one I struggle to re-edit, Gaia’s Hands.

The dream of getting published is easier to interpret: I want to get published. I figure it will be as satisfying as moulaging. I can’t wait to get started.