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vcmwApparently my conscious mind is obsessed with work and my subconscious mind is obsessed with other work. Or something. I took my first mini vacation in a year this weekend, and I had two bizarre, vivid dreams related to the profession of writing and librarianship.
On Thursday Night:
I had the weirdest writing-related dream ever just before my 2nd alarm went off.
Setting: I am sharing a room at a conference with two or more female friends. We plan to attend an 8:00 or 8:30AM presentation solely to learn more about Ms. Caroline Stevermer's forthcoming work. We have won a lottery of some kind, and she will be visiting us in person to share breakfast with us after the presentation and before her later panels.
Sadly, as we look at a map of the convention site we realize that there is now way Ms. Stevermer would be able to get all the way to our hotel for breakfast and then make it to her later appointments. We are just sadly discussing how one of us should call to tell her this and cancel our breakfast when a courier knocks at our door.
The courier (a tidily dressed gentleman in his thirties or forties) has come in to announce exactly what we just realized. Ms. Stevermer will not be able to join us. However, she feels sad about this and has sent us some items to examine before they reach the general public, to make up for the disappointment. With a flourish, he shares a letter (typed on carbon, and the carbon is in the envelope! how strange) explaining the map that will go in the front of her new book. As I examine the letter (which seems to be all about the psychology of the middle school reader of the work to be, as it affects how the reader will interpret the map), he lays out the map for us to examine. The draft map is quite large and in glossy color, and resembles one of those maps of the world that go at the front of classrooms more than it does a Tolkien-esque fantasy map. It features what at first I take to be a small imaginary continent, but on closer examination is the eastern seaboard of the United States, which has peeled off to make its own continent. The messenger chides me for my lack of geographic knowledge - I had thought the map showed a New England based continent, but instead it shows one that includes the Carolinas up through Pennsylvania.
We've also been sent a glossy, full color galley of the forthcoming book. For some reason it is being published by Marvel comics. The spine-wrap is tiger printed, and the title is Glimmerspark or Glimmer something. I am the only one who gets to keep the galley, and I'm horribly excited.
I have no idea where this dream came from. I used to dream quite elaborate and vivid dreams of stories authors hadn't written all the time when I was a kid (one about Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles where I got to meet him as he completed the latest as-yet-unpublished Amber book, one about sitting inside Ursula LeGuin's head while she wrote a story involving a dog-soldier who carried a musket and met up with Schroedinger's Cat, other oddities like that). However, it's been decades since the last one. And this was more librarian-focused than writer-focused in many ways. I can pick out where some elements came from (I think the Marvel-publishing bit is an elliptical usage by my brain of the news that DC is canceling the Minx line), but overall? Odd. Really fun while I was dreaming it though.
On Friday Night:
For some reason, I have written a new book set in Robert Asprin's Phule's Company world. I have no idea why. Also, I have written this book with a collaborator. We have alternated chapters of the work. I have submitted this work to a publisher with a bizarre query letter/cover letter that says, in essence "I'd love to ask if someone could arrange to find out whether Mr. Asprin's estate would be cool with us publishing this sequel we've written, here it is" (<- in the dream, this letter is read out off the page in full business-text, but it makes no more sense then than it does in this summary.)
Apparently, the publisher agreed to take the book or the editor agreed to acquire it, or something. I have received the galley (what is it with my brain and galleys???). I am staring at the cover and open it. This is when I realize two horrible things. They hit me with an immense shock such that I think I must have been mentally asleep for months and have just (in the dream) awoken.
Thing 1: No one has ever actually approached Mr. Asprin's estate to receive permission to print this sequel.
Thing 2: I have never actually read or even discussed any of the chapters (alternating throughout the text!) that my collaborator wrote.
I spend the rest of the dream desperately attempting to remedy this by reading the alternating chapters, but they make no sense. They are told from the viewpoint of one of the alien militaries (no problem there) but these alien militaries seem to be in a totally different style of story, an angry dark space opera as opposed to a comical humanistic one. Also, no one can tell me what the publishing status of the book is.
On Thursday Night:
I had the weirdest writing-related dream ever just before my 2nd alarm went off.
Setting: I am sharing a room at a conference with two or more female friends. We plan to attend an 8:00 or 8:30AM presentation solely to learn more about Ms. Caroline Stevermer's forthcoming work. We have won a lottery of some kind, and she will be visiting us in person to share breakfast with us after the presentation and before her later panels.
Sadly, as we look at a map of the convention site we realize that there is now way Ms. Stevermer would be able to get all the way to our hotel for breakfast and then make it to her later appointments. We are just sadly discussing how one of us should call to tell her this and cancel our breakfast when a courier knocks at our door.
The courier (a tidily dressed gentleman in his thirties or forties) has come in to announce exactly what we just realized. Ms. Stevermer will not be able to join us. However, she feels sad about this and has sent us some items to examine before they reach the general public, to make up for the disappointment. With a flourish, he shares a letter (typed on carbon, and the carbon is in the envelope! how strange) explaining the map that will go in the front of her new book. As I examine the letter (which seems to be all about the psychology of the middle school reader of the work to be, as it affects how the reader will interpret the map), he lays out the map for us to examine. The draft map is quite large and in glossy color, and resembles one of those maps of the world that go at the front of classrooms more than it does a Tolkien-esque fantasy map. It features what at first I take to be a small imaginary continent, but on closer examination is the eastern seaboard of the United States, which has peeled off to make its own continent. The messenger chides me for my lack of geographic knowledge - I had thought the map showed a New England based continent, but instead it shows one that includes the Carolinas up through Pennsylvania.
We've also been sent a glossy, full color galley of the forthcoming book. For some reason it is being published by Marvel comics. The spine-wrap is tiger printed, and the title is Glimmerspark or Glimmer something. I am the only one who gets to keep the galley, and I'm horribly excited.
I have no idea where this dream came from. I used to dream quite elaborate and vivid dreams of stories authors hadn't written all the time when I was a kid (one about Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles where I got to meet him as he completed the latest as-yet-unpublished Amber book, one about sitting inside Ursula LeGuin's head while she wrote a story involving a dog-soldier who carried a musket and met up with Schroedinger's Cat, other oddities like that). However, it's been decades since the last one. And this was more librarian-focused than writer-focused in many ways. I can pick out where some elements came from (I think the Marvel-publishing bit is an elliptical usage by my brain of the news that DC is canceling the Minx line), but overall? Odd. Really fun while I was dreaming it though.
On Friday Night:
For some reason, I have written a new book set in Robert Asprin's Phule's Company world. I have no idea why. Also, I have written this book with a collaborator. We have alternated chapters of the work. I have submitted this work to a publisher with a bizarre query letter/cover letter that says, in essence "I'd love to ask if someone could arrange to find out whether Mr. Asprin's estate would be cool with us publishing this sequel we've written, here it is" (<- in the dream, this letter is read out off the page in full business-text, but it makes no more sense then than it does in this summary.)
Apparently, the publisher agreed to take the book or the editor agreed to acquire it, or something. I have received the galley (what is it with my brain and galleys???). I am staring at the cover and open it. This is when I realize two horrible things. They hit me with an immense shock such that I think I must have been mentally asleep for months and have just (in the dream) awoken.
Thing 1: No one has ever actually approached Mr. Asprin's estate to receive permission to print this sequel.
Thing 2: I have never actually read or even discussed any of the chapters (alternating throughout the text!) that my collaborator wrote.
I spend the rest of the dream desperately attempting to remedy this by reading the alternating chapters, but they make no sense. They are told from the viewpoint of one of the alien militaries (no problem there) but these alien militaries seem to be in a totally different style of story, an angry dark space opera as opposed to a comical humanistic one. Also, no one can tell me what the publishing status of the book is.
