Monday, November 24, 2008

Musings, dreams, nightmares, fantasies

And a dash of reality.

First, let's get the dash of reality out of the way......

I went to the SFWA reception tonight. It was an excellent exercise for ocular muscles. All the name tags were color coded. Everyone who passed through the room glanced first at your face then immediately down to your name tag and then, all too often for those of us wearing author red, away. Are you my new agent, blue? Can you help me publish my book, purple? Maybe you can do my cover, green? Awww...you're red like me.

The predominance of red did not work for some I spoke with ("I haven't spoken with one agent tonight!") but I felt the energy of being with writers exhilarating. Isn't this my future? Isn't this where I belong? I could be at my grad class instead of trashing my average with this ONE more absence. (Oh! You wicked, wicked girl!) But I'd rather be in a room full of writers.

Actually, what I'd really rather be doing is writing so that the next time I'm in a room full of writers someone will want to look back at my face after they read my name.

On to nightmares, etc.

I feel the pain of the dog's weight pinning me flat on my back. His huge black paws press into the tender depressions over my breasts, just below my collarbones. Teeth bared over my face, hot saliva in my eyes.

Mermaids flash irridescent tails; their cupped hands offer pink lotus, plait my hair with pearls and seaweed. I swim with Blue Tang and Emperor fish. A flash of gold, a shoal of silver with yellow tails.

I'm on the top floor of a dingy white clapboard house. The wall of the room I am standing in crumbles, falls away like dust to reveal the night sky, jagged rocks along a distant shore. White waves scrape the moon, rush toward the empty, broken room, engulf me.

I wake in the sand at the edge of the ocean. Another wall of water roars towards the shore. Everyone is running but I am naked and wounded.

Where are the dreams of flying?

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