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Yep, Columbus, Ohio. OSU grad myself. I'm actually about 1/2 hour east of the city, in Newark.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Well, one of the "dream" books I read said you can learn lucid dreaming by the constant writing-down of your dreams---which I did for, oh, about a year and a half, till I had to stop. (The pressure and time constraints from making a living got in the way of typing up the notes.)
I wound up realizing (1) the abovementioned thesis that "dreams don't mean anything unless you want them to," (2) there are lots of story ideas in dreams, and (3) one of my dreams (not a nightmare) was so disturbing that it haunts me down to this day.
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By the way, last night was my first night back at work...three weeks off, of which the middle section was spent traveling and vacationing. Work is okay, especially the money part...but I'd really rather not.
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I know what you mean, Robert. I LOVE my job (high school drama teacher). The only thing I love more than going to work, is not going to work.
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Well, with my job, the pay and benefits are great and I don't have to work with hot grease...on the other hand, when I started, I got to sit and to use my brains---both of which, they eliminated.
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So your dream, Robert: seven feet tall means you feel powerful, but the baseball symbolizes that you feel your power is underutilized. (You should have a basketball.) That you couldn't catch it means that your power is not only under-utilized but un-utilized. Being accused of stealing a mailbox that was yours means that you feel your ownership of your job is being taken away from you.
Yep, your right, dreams can mean whatever you want them to.
Last night I dreamed I got a pug and it was nuts anytime I was away from it. (Well it was nuts anytime I was near it too.)
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EVOC: I misspoke (miswrote?). I'm a high school theater teacher. You're right; they need no help with the dramatics, especially the theater kids. You want a boiling cauldron of drama and emotion? Hang out backstage on a shownight at a high school play. Which is actually where I'm headed right now.
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A couple of nights ago I dreamed a lot of the plot of Ratattouille---I'd just been re-watching it. But I woke up with one thought about it: a lot of the action takes place in a restaurant, but you never see or hear of anyone paying for a meal...
I suppose you can gain insight through dreams, even if it's something outside you...
*****
I might accept Pyre Dynasty's analysis except the dream involved school, and not work---aside from that, I do feel under- and un-utilized at work, though.
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School is the work of a child. And the unconscious is formed as a child so it understands things in a childlike way. (Dang it Jung stop haunting me!)
Anyways I've been spending my memorial day weekend refinishing a floor for dead people, it seems appropriate. It always gives me freaky dreams when I do that. This time I had to push a cart full of brains in tupperware into the other room. There was also one of they gurneys with a squeaky wheel, it sounded like muffled screaming coming from the body bag. It's going to take me days to scrub off the smell of death. The floor looks good though, even though next week they may spill some unspeakable goo on it.
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In collage I knew a couple of guys who worked part time at a Mortuary for free room. They told some interesting stories.
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Necrophiles got it all wrong---all you run into in that line of work are people you wouldn't want to look at if they were alive...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Stange Horizons has so deeply disappointed me. They have a self-restricting response time of 70 days, even saying in their guidelines...
quote: ...if you haven't heard back from us in 70 days, query immediately...
...so you can imagine my optimistic expectations once day 71 came and no response had been received by them. Made me believe my story was under consideration.
My very nice and patient query was answered with a swift and generic rejection. Come on now, not even a bone for me to gnaw on for this hungry dog?
But I have something to say but ran out of time tonight.
But be ye not fretful, oh worried one. We brave and handsome and strong ones will keep marching even through Mud and muck and slings and arrows and high heat or that is high water. There have been other dry periods on this thread, someone has a bit of wisdom to pass one sooner or later.
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GoComics just merged with Comics-dot-com (or took it over, I'm not sure.) Plus: now I can add comics like "Luann" and "9 Chickweed Lane" to my comics page. Minus: the e-mail they're supposed to send me hasn't arrived 'round four AM most of the mornings since they did it.
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Yeah, the link is fine. It's just the randomness of it all...your post from GoComics reminded me I wanted to bitch about my e-mail comics from them.
Incidentally, this morning I found one from Tuesday sent last night, and one from Wednesday sent early this morning, but not one for today.
quote:My very nice and patient query was answered with a swift and generic rejection. Come on now, not even a bone for me to gnaw on for this hungry dog?
I once had Del Rey Books sit on three-chapters-and-an-outline for over a year...and my query brought an apology for taking so long, a quick extraction from the slush pile, and a swift rejection. (I'm not sorry; in retrospect, it was terrible.)
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Did you hear the one about the god Thor and the maiden? Well, Thor came down to Earth and [Material Self-Censored] and, afterwards, he said, "Thanks, and, by the way, I'm Thor."
"You're Thor!" the maiden replied. "I'm thorer, thir, than you!"
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My sister suffers from night terrors. Just now she screamed bloody murder, it shook the house. Last time that happened she almost ran right through a fourth floor plate glass window. Luckily someone was there to tackle her then. She's okay.
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Wow. Sounds like your sister is having some serious issues... That is scary.
I had a few of episodes of night terrors when I was a teenager. It was as if a demon was trying to possess me and when I tried to move or speak, I was unable and felt as if I was pinned to my bed. This experience is the only experience I can relate with the feeling of "horror."
I don't know if the issue with night terrors is a pure physiological/psychological phenomenon or if there is a spiritual element to it as well. I'm sure scientists would tell you one thing and a spiritual person quite another. I will say that I don't have fear of having night terrors anymore (and would never expect to have them again) as a Christian believer. At the same time, I don't want to belittle any issue that really could be medically-related and requires medical attention.
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I've gone through a plate glass window...believe me, it's something to be avoided at all costs.
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Wordcaster, your experience of not being able to move may actually be physiological, or so I've been told. It sounds like "sleep paralysis" which is often accompanied by a sense of weight on your body, and it is what is believed to have caused the folklore of being "hag-ridden."
What goes on, physiologically when you sleep, is that the nerve signals to the muscles are shut down so you don't thrash around the bed when you dream. If you wake up suddenly, the signals haven't had time to start up again, and you feel paralyzed.
I had learned about the sleep paralysis years after my episodes. It is entirely possible that my whole experiences were physiological. I also had bad nightmares at the time -- something I haven't had in years.
The whole concept of dreams and sleep is a fascinating subject itself.
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Saw HANNA last night (finally--after reading OSC's review a few weeks ago), and was very impressed by it. If someone had told me that a violent adventure film could be so cleverly integrated with an artistic style, I might have scoffed. Now I know different.
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Shaking your fist is about all you CAN do when it comes to ants . Their little tunnels are genius since they're only large enough for the ants themselves, so any larger insects would have a useless time trying to invade an ant colony.
I actually used that as a strategy in one of my stories, where the humans are going against larger creatures that absolutely demolish them on open ground. So they make networks of tunnels just big enough for humans, and they have those tunnels studded with holes they pop up through to take potshots at the enemies.
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So I am having a baby in a couple of weeks.
I'm excited to hopefully get my normal brain back, and get some real writing done. In the last nine months I have only finished one story. I've written a lot of beginnings, some I'm actually happy with, but I don't seem to have the brain energy to follow the dots to an ending.
But critting probably won't be happening for a few months. So snapper, get on the ball with the challenge, or I will be critting stories from a hospital bed. I've got four weeks left, snapper...
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Congrats! Don't know how much brain you get back after having kids. I got three young boys and I can never remember where I set my brain down.
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My first thought was to ask which you meant the normal brain or the get more writing done. But my second thought was most probably both.
I started seriously writing after my daughter was born and had grown a bit. Even though I didn't have her, I did spend a lot of time carrying her around for the first year or so, changing diapers etc.
I know this by the fact that there are stacks of plywood appearing in many shopping centers.
I've never seen them unloaded so I don't know if aliens, or people from the future, transport them down, if a warp hole opens and they pop in from an alternate universe or if some wizard uses magic but they are there every year at this time. After a week or so they turn into booths that stay around from one week to one month altogether. Then they turn back into piles of plywood and after a few more days that wormhole opens again.
quote: so you can imagine my optimistic expectations once day 71 came and no response had been received by them. Made me believe my story was under consideration.
Same happened to me, though I got my rejection after 68 days, so I hadn't queried. I was so hopeful, too.
quote: Same happened to me, though I got my rejection after 68 days, so I hadn't queried. I was so hopeful, too.
responding to this mini thread here, I can relate--I suspect most writers can--Not with Strange Horizons but once F&SF took two months to get back to me and another time six weeks. Just the normal rejection from the usual slush reader, neither hadn't even moved up.
And even though I can't recall for sure which ones now, the same type of thing has happened with one or two other mags.
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A story at a market is like the Schrodinger's Cat paradox---quantum physics in action. Either it's accepted or it's rejected, so, by the rules of quantum physics, it's half accepted, half rejected.
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Robert, after thinking about for a minute or two I decided I would go with half accepted. That might mean a personal note or at least some indication that it moved up to the next level. In WotF that could mean a HM.
And Nate I agree with you.
[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited June 25, 2011).]
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shimiqua, all of your creative energy has been going into growing that baby, and it may take a while after the birth before you have that energy back again.
Shannon Hale gave birth to twins several months ago, and it put quite a crimp in her writing output, but she's getting back into things now.
So give yourself time, and from my experience, I think I can assure you that you will be back in business (of writing) in a few months, if not weeks.
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. Their little tunnels are genius since they're only large enough for the ants themselves, so any larger insects would have a useless time trying to invade an ant colony.
