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Links, writing, dreams
Retronaut posts vintage photos of smiling Victorians. Part 2. (Although to be pedantic, many of these are smiling Edwardians.)
And to change the subject...you know, I'm not sure I could be one of those id writers, the kind that regurgitates the contents of their id onto the paper and sometimes ends up selling millions *coughAnneBishopcough*. Every so often I have dreams that I wake up from going "Man, that would make a good book," and as I wake up more I realize that I'd probably be embarassed to write that up and have people going "You wrote that? You wrote that?" And they're not anywhere near as ridonkulous as others *coughAnneBishopcough*.
Case in point, last night's dream...
Last night's dream evolved out of some weird anxiety-thing where I was wandering around a college dorm, extremely tan. I mean extremely. Not quite to the blackened-fish look of the woman who was in the news recently, but to the brown-shoe-leather stage where people are starign at you and whispering behind your back and Iw as making excuses ("It's not really an allover bad tan, it's that I'm very freckled and from a distance it just looks like a tan!" Yeah, right). At some point I realized I wasn't actually me, I was a young woman with long blonde hair, and that I wasn't that tan after all, and I was dressed in, essentially,a black leather catsuit (think Black Widow or any of the female SHIELD operatives in The Avengers) at which point the dream shifted gear completely.
It was in a sort of fantasy world, possibly post-apocalyptic, but there was a young man sitting on a couch in a room (in a large, sprawling complex of buildings, or a rundown mansion, or something, I think). He was worried and disturbed. He was also blond and wearing something leather and bodysuit-ish (and seemed really familiar, like an actor or someone I know IRL, but I can't place him*). What he was worried about was that he was sort-of sitting a vigil that would determine the course of his life.
At some point during this vigil, which wasn't just one night, but a sort of contemplative period in his life, he was supposed to know whether he was going to be a magician or a priest, and he was fretting about that. ISTR that culturally, magicians and their brotherhood were viewed with of suspicion while the priests were revered.
I (the blonde, athletic, catsuited, not-me) was, apparently, sneakily watching him and at some point during the night crept in and confronted him, telling him that priests and magicians had the same power even though the priests didn't manifest it, and it wasn't the vigil that brought it on--it was having sex that did it.** The vigil period was more of a period of deciding whether you were going to be of the world (magician) or apart from it (priest).
And then set to seducing him, as the magician brotherhood wanted him in their ranks for some reason. He was unsure, but not totally averse to the idea, and then NPR started talking to me as the alarm clock went off.
There was more to the dream than I remember - it was quite vivid - but the alarm clock banished it, but I do remember thinking as I surfaced that it would make for a good story. Until I got all the way awake, that is. XD
I suppose that's what a pseudonym is for, huh?
* At one point, a friend of his who looked an awful lot like Jon Snow from Game of Thrones wandered through. I have Suspicions about where my subconscious was getting the black-clothing/priesthood motif from.
** Shades of 1980s extruded fantasy product! I read so many books where female powers either came on or were destroyed by sex *coughAnneBishopisnotoriginalcough*. I should be glad my subconscious is turning that around.
And to change the subject...you know, I'm not sure I could be one of those id writers, the kind that regurgitates the contents of their id onto the paper and sometimes ends up selling millions *coughAnneBishopcough*. Every so often I have dreams that I wake up from going "Man, that would make a good book," and as I wake up more I realize that I'd probably be embarassed to write that up and have people going "You wrote that? You wrote that?" And they're not anywhere near as ridonkulous as others *coughAnneBishopcough*.
Case in point, last night's dream...
Last night's dream evolved out of some weird anxiety-thing where I was wandering around a college dorm, extremely tan. I mean extremely. Not quite to the blackened-fish look of the woman who was in the news recently, but to the brown-shoe-leather stage where people are starign at you and whispering behind your back and Iw as making excuses ("It's not really an allover bad tan, it's that I'm very freckled and from a distance it just looks like a tan!" Yeah, right). At some point I realized I wasn't actually me, I was a young woman with long blonde hair, and that I wasn't that tan after all, and I was dressed in, essentially,a black leather catsuit (think Black Widow or any of the female SHIELD operatives in The Avengers) at which point the dream shifted gear completely.
It was in a sort of fantasy world, possibly post-apocalyptic, but there was a young man sitting on a couch in a room (in a large, sprawling complex of buildings, or a rundown mansion, or something, I think). He was worried and disturbed. He was also blond and wearing something leather and bodysuit-ish (and seemed really familiar, like an actor or someone I know IRL, but I can't place him*). What he was worried about was that he was sort-of sitting a vigil that would determine the course of his life.
At some point during this vigil, which wasn't just one night, but a sort of contemplative period in his life, he was supposed to know whether he was going to be a magician or a priest, and he was fretting about that. ISTR that culturally, magicians and their brotherhood were viewed with of suspicion while the priests were revered.
I (the blonde, athletic, catsuited, not-me) was, apparently, sneakily watching him and at some point during the night crept in and confronted him, telling him that priests and magicians had the same power even though the priests didn't manifest it, and it wasn't the vigil that brought it on--it was having sex that did it.** The vigil period was more of a period of deciding whether you were going to be of the world (magician) or apart from it (priest).
And then set to seducing him, as the magician brotherhood wanted him in their ranks for some reason. He was unsure, but not totally averse to the idea, and then NPR started talking to me as the alarm clock went off.
There was more to the dream than I remember - it was quite vivid - but the alarm clock banished it, but I do remember thinking as I surfaced that it would make for a good story. Until I got all the way awake, that is. XD
I suppose that's what a pseudonym is for, huh?
* At one point, a friend of his who looked an awful lot like Jon Snow from Game of Thrones wandered through. I have Suspicions about where my subconscious was getting the black-clothing/priesthood motif from.
** Shades of 1980s extruded fantasy product! I read so many books where female powers either came on or were destroyed by sex *coughAnneBishopisnotoriginalcough*. I should be glad my subconscious is turning that around.
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The fact that I won runner-up position in a contest with a flashfic from a dream really didn't help matters. (Er, my dream, not yours, in this case, although it was the same contest, different years.)
And that Loki/Puck dream I had is sitting in my notebook, whispering at me, because it had a very clear concept that I haven't read elsewhere (not the Shakespearian part, obviously). But. Dream. Wrangling.
Id-fic. *impotent fist shake of d00m*
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I've got a few other dreams, and a world and a couple of characters that I, well, 'dreamed up' isn't quite the right term, but I thought them out in the space between awake and asleep, when I was drowsing with a nap one day, when my iner editor wasn't screaming at me, and they might make something one day, if I can only SIT MY BUTT DOWN AND WRITE.
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eta: Also, butt-in-chair-write advice gets my back up, so that now I am resistant to the idea. I think half the problem is that I used to write during lectures, and then later during slow times at work when I had a private-ish cube, and now... I feel guilty about it! Argh, brain.
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Butt-in-chair is exactly my problem, alas. I know that the "write [period of time] a day every day" doesn't necessarily work for me -- I need deadline pressure from outside, like from Yuletide, to do it, and there's nothing like that for original work. Well, ok, NaNo, but that's partially self-imposed, as in there's no social consequences if I fail at it, and the sheer amount of typing necessary to make the numbers would re-injure my wrists. (I do think vaguely of trying it every year!)
I think I figured out why my so-far "natural" length is 4000-5000 words (as in, every story I've written is that long). I think it's because that's the amount of story that I can comfortably carry in my head. I've got a book on outlining waiting to be read that I might see if I can give it a go for something longer.
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....and that is why we <3 you.
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As for the dreams ... just enjoy them! I seldom have vivid, interesting, plotty dreams.