Valhalla Dreamin'

I dreamed last night that while I was in the bathroom (no more than 2 minutes) someone snuck into my apartment and stole my new computer. I came out of the bathroom (probably something deeply symbolic there) and looked over at the computer table and there was the Ancient Horror sitting off to the side so I could finish retrieving data from it, but the new one was gone! Arrrrrrrr!

Considering that I went heavily into debt to buy this computer (it's fancy) and I hadn't had a new computer at home in nine years (oh my!) and that I loooooooove my new computer, this is probably just your standard issue anxiety dream. Maybe a reminder to renew the wards at all doors and windows around the apartment, but probably just the standard issue anxiety dream.

Then it seems to have turned into a caper dream...I can't remember exactly how, but I somehow induced/coerced the thieves into returning my computer—maybe made it too hot for them to hold onto it, but I don't know how. So I cleverly hid in the closet while the thief picked his way through the mess of my apartment, trying hard not to trip. In the dream it was much messier, but maybe this was actually a "Now, Pam, don't you think it's time to do a little cleaning around here?" dream. (At any rate, I did get up this morning and immediately set about clearing up. I should have more dreams like this.)

So, back to the thief sneaking through my apartment...He returned the computer all right but instead of my nice shiny white iMac, I got this thing encased in black metal with hideous big bolts. The screen was encased in this metal, too—you could see the screen, but it was framed all around in black and it resembled a microwave more than a computer. Not only that, they'd wiped the hard drive because when I started to make things hot for them they'd been in the process of getting it ready to sell again on the black market (hmm, maybe that's what the black metal meant). Since I'm Ms. Obsessive Backup after a hard drive disaster several years back, that wasn't as catastrophic as it could have been. But it did mean I'd lost everything I'd worked on in the last four days. And since I'm heavily into The Rewrite now that meant I'd lost a lot.

Hmm. Maybe this was a "You haven't been as obsessive about your backups lately and you better be careful" dream.

Anyway, back in dreamland, out leaps me from the closet and pounces on this guy. He's a 20-something, buzz-cut, strapping fellow but I manage to wrestle him to the ground and subdue him. (A female empowerment dream?)

This could harken back to an incident in my youth when My Mother The Valkyrie heard a disturbance in the garage, ran out in her girlie nightgown, captured a teenager trying to steal a lawnmower and sat on him while I called the police. The police didn't believe this young whippersnapper (me) that my mother was sitting on a thief in the garage—perhaps I didn't express myself in quite the proper fashion and maybe I giggled back a little when the person I was reporting the crime to laughed at me. At any rate, it was a Saturday night, the cops were busy, they never showed up. But the thief's older brother did. He was about 18 or 20 and he wrestled his younger brother away from My Mother The Valkyrie, but not before she round-housed him and knocked him on his a!s.

Hmm. Maybe that's why I've never had much problem with the female empowerment thing. With a Valkyrie for a mother, female empowerment is a given. Hmm. Maybe that's why I'm still single. Hmm. It worked for mom, though. Hmm.

Anyway, back to the thief I was sitting on. In my dream. So there I am sitting on this guy and he's very reasonably asking me what the hell I'm doing and I say, "I'm capturing you to turn you over to the police."

"I returned your computer."

"But you wiped it clean and wrecked it. I want it restored to the way it was."

"Can't do that."

"Then I'm calling the police."

"My friends are coming to get me."

And I'd failed to have the phone with me before I sat on the guy. If I got off him, he'd bolt, and I couldn't reach it from where we were on the floor. And while we were down there I couldn't help noticing how cute he was, how well put together, how well spoken, what a rakish look in his big blue eyes... No, it didn't turn into one of those dreams, but I suppose it could have if I'd stayed asleep a bit longer.

I'm afraid there's no end to this story except the worst cop-out of all time: And then I woke up. Hey, it was a dream.

Freud would probably have a field day with this; Jung would undoubtedly find something to maunder on about. Me, I'm sticking with the standard issue anxiety dream and there's no way in hell you're getting me to stop sitting on that position.

Disclaimer: This dream was just a dream. It was not meant to represent any persons, living or dead, and was intended solely for the purposes of entertainment. And I would like to state for the record that I never in real life sat on any man. That's was My Mother The Valkyrie's department. Me, I always preferred to do other things with men. But that's another dream, and best left out of the pages of this journal.

P.S. The Rewrite

And oh yeah, that's going well. I'm progressing slowly—a chapter a day—because I'm reading through the first time and making changes based on my own instincts as an editor. Then I'm going through and rereading the OWW reviews for the chapter and incorporating where appropriate.

Since I posted this thing between Feb '03 and March '04 [7-6-04: oops--got my dates wrong] (and I'm sure it seemed much longer to those few intrepid souls who stuck with me all the way—thanks people), some of those crits were like a walk down memory lane. Some of those critters are no longer with OWW and I miss them. Some of the people who still crit my stuff started with chapter one of Shivery Bones, so it's like seeing them for the first time all over again. (Hi, Kev.)

And I was really lucky in my crits. I got, for the most part, thoughtful and helpful input. Back in those early days of the novel, I got a ton of crits, too, so going through them does take some time. That will change as I get further into the novel. The crits were just as thoughtful, there just weren't as many of them. I'd rather have a half dozen thoughtful crits then a dozen piffling ones, though.

My sense always was that the front end of the novel would need the least amount of work, and that seems to be holding true. My sense was that chapter 5 would need some work, and it did. So, my sense is that the middle part will probably need a lot of work. We'll see if my instincts hold true there. I imagine I might slow down as I approach those pesky chapters.

One of the cool things: my subconscious is definitely on the job. I had a piece of writing that I'd moved from a late chapter to chapter five, but I wasn't sure it worked there. I knew for sure it needed to come early rather than late, but I didn't know if five was the place for it. I woke up yesterday morning and knew exactly what to do with that piece of writing. I moved it to chapter ten, which at this juncture seems the perfect place for it. I hope my right brain continues to stay on the job. Thanks, unconscious.

And thanks again to all the people who reviewed Shivery Bones. Your help was invaluable.