Dreaming of Waking

I had a strange movielike experience this morning. Several times in the hour-long period before the alarm went off, I dreamt that I woke up and went to the shower. Except it wasn’t always the shower that’s in our house, and in a couple of instances it was a shower that couldn’t possibly exist. Once, I recall, the shower was located in the dining room of my childhood home, in a corner where the telephone was located. It was a very strange sensation. I honestly can’t remember ever dreaming about waking up before, especially not having it seem so real.

Last year I wrote a long mystery/suspense story as a submission for a MWA (Mystery Writers) anthology. I found out today (implicitly) that it didn’t make the cut. This is how I found out — I received a copy of the MWA newsletter, which had, on page 6, the table of contents for the anthology and my name wasn’t on it. Disappointed, of course, but also a little rankled that they couldn’t even stick a form rejection in my SASE and let me know before the announcement. That’s not the first time something like that has happened to me. On one memorable occasion, the opposite happened; I found my name in a table of contents before I got my acceptance letter or contract! Writing is indeed a strange business.

Okay, how does this happen? I’m a big Pink Floyd fan. Have been since my first year in university. However, just lately, I’ve realized that I was missing out on a big part of the PF catalog. Specifically, just about everything pre-Dark Side except Umma Gumma. And I’ve never listened to any of Gilmour’s or Waters’ solo albums. Waters, okay, he got a little whiny and self-absorbed toward the end of his PF days so I guess I can excuse myself for not listening to KAOS or his subsequent solo efforts. But I liked everything Gilmour did with PF in the post-Waters era, so why didn’t I listen to any of his solo work? Currently listening to About Face for the first time ever.

It’s actually very uncharacteristic of me. When Supertramp’s two major contributors split, I followed both the new Supertramp and Roger Hodgson, and I bought their pre-Crime of the Century albums, warts and all, long ago. I can’t figure out why I didn’t go back to the old Floyd catalog. I’ve discovered some real gems among them, including but not limited to Obscured by Clouds and Relics.

I wrote my first short story in a long time yesterday. It’s a short one (1500 words) intended for a market that has a 500-2000 word acceptance range. Its creation was very typical of what happens with me. I envisioned the setup and the characters and wrote the first half the story in a single sitting. Then I went and had a shower (a real one, not a dream one) and the rest of the story congealed in my mind between shampoo and rinse. I got out of the shower, stumbled around looking for a pen and paper, and wrote six or seven lines to outline the rest of the story, which I finished up (first draft) later on yesterday.

Maybe I should just get myself a waterproof marker and easel for the shower. If I see it in there, at least I’ll know I’m awake and not dreaming.