The Kind Of Day You Dream About

[dr_pretentious]

Today was a beautiful writing day. I had one of those plot holes... You remember the Far Side cartoon with the physicist? He's staring in dismay at his blackboard full of scribbled equations, and in the middle, he has had to resort to filling his gap with, "And then a miracle occurs." Or the South Park episode in which the Underpants Gnomes reveal to Cartman their secret business plan:

Step One: Steal Underpants
Step Two: ???
Step Three: Profit

Yeah, well, the plot of the current Rugosa Coven story was building up to a scene of epic struggle with an actual adversary, and I knew none of the things about that adversary that I needed to know to make the story actually work.

That is, I didn't know until about 1:30 this afternoon. At which point the entire story came together and I comprehended the true nature of the cosmos. There were parting clouds, beams of sunlight, and angelic trumpets also. Revelatory. Fucking revelatory.

Now all I have to do is write it in a way that does not suck.

In other news, the conference is now drawing near enough that I'm starting to have anxiety dreams about it. I dream that I miss my flight to Seattle. I dream that I've triple-booked myself by telling seedmoon, and Ary & Anj, and my mother's cousin that I'm crashing on all of their respective couches on the same Wednesday night that week, and then they all feel so snubbed about my schedule confusion that I suddenly have nowhere to stay. I wake up and am relieved that, although in fact I have not arranged anywhere to stay that night, at least nobody's irked at me. I dream that I show up for a pitch session with an editor, and I'm wearing my frumpiest Christmas Eve flannel nightgown. Normal people have nudity anxiety dreams; nice Pagan girl that I am, I'm never anxious when I dream about being naked, but I get seriously freaked out if I dream that people see me in my frumpy winter sleepwear. I dream that an agent asks me to describe my novel, and I can't remember anything about anything I've ever written. I dream that KJ asks me to handle conference sign-in for one of my volunteer shifts, and I show up a day late. I dream that I get the weeks mixed up for midsummer festival and the writing conference, and pack my luggage all wrong: I show up at the campground with a suitcase full of business cards and impeccable linen suits, and then, somehow, at the conference hotel with a bunch of sarongs, my ritual tools, and a tent.

Why can't June come, already? Ah. Because I haven't finished the Rugosa draft. Better get back to work, then.

Comments

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

Wow! A Prophet! I never seem to get full-blown revelations of the true nature of the cosmos. Usually I have to settle for glimpses insight seen through a gap in the curtains and a dirty window. Congratulations!

I hope we will get to meet while you are here in Seattle. Sunday failed, are you available for dinner any evening? Coffee? (It is Seattle, after all.) Any free time in your schedule, I'll try to clear mine. Still not confident that I'll make any of the conference as I'm still waiting to hear my status at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference the following month. LMK.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I would love to meet with you. I have some old friends and relatives in Seattle who all sort of have dibs on Wednesday dinner, and I'm still waiting for that to settled out. I'm not sure what kind of free time I'll have once the conference starts, since I'm on volunteer staff, but I will need to get out for the occasional coffee break. I can touch base with you by phone once I've checked in and have a more detailed idea of what my volunteer schedule and the final panel schedule are. Just in case it slips my mind later, my cell phone number is:

seven
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zero
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Next time I head for Seattle, I'll just have to build in more free days.