Anyone had any weird writing-related dreams? I'm not talking about getting story ideas from dreams, but your mind trying to tell you something about your work.
Last night I was in a university dining hall. Thomas Harris and Stephen King were a couple of tables away. They both had a copy of Lord of the Rings on the table in front of them. But the books were thin - probably only 200 pages. They weren't spreaking to each other and I didn't speak to them...
Combining their efforts I'd imagine.
My first thought is that it has something to do with the scope of your WIP. I know Harris is an influence of yours, and I bet King is as well. They don't speak because they want you to trudge through the muck and mire on your own. They feel you are in the same milieu, and are inviting you to join the published echelons. Only you must take on the daunting task of dealing with the scope of your story, and you know that you are alone, and that's why you don't try to speak.
That's the first thought that came to mind. Maybe you smoked some dmt before passing out, I dunno.
I never have dreams of authors or writing. I wish I did, they would be much more pleasant.
Hmmm. Red Dragon has influenced me probably more than any other book.
But Stephen King... I've never actually read anything of his other than On Writing. One thing stuck with me from that book - he tells a story about how he had this fat babysitter that farted on him all the time. Which is a pretty embarassing thing to write about, and for me shows that be a good writer, you have to be prepared to put anything on the page. And today I'm posting something in the workshop with a scene that maybe some people would shy away from writing...
What's interesting (to me) is the thin version of LOTR. Another book I've never read, but as far as I know, it's a big book with a lot of detailed description. Two things on my mind - the 2nd draft of my novel is only 60,000 words (short for the genre) and I don't write with a lot of description.
So... are King and Harris thinking that the pared down version of LOTR is good or bad? Why aren't they talking!
Adding another layer to that, both Harris and King are sometimes criticized for writing bloated books. I like to think they were meeting to share the results of a gentlemanly "my editor can beat up your editor" wager, using neutral material.
I've had a few dreams about my characters, none that were particularly insightful or useful. And several times I've had one where I showed up to my own reading without any material. That's the updated equivalent of the universal one where I find myself in a classroom having forgotten to study for a test.
The day I started reading Ocean At The End Of The Lane I got about half way through and then went to bed, I proceeded to have a dream that Neil Gaiman was following me around trying to tell me how it ended before I finished it. I got really mad at him and woke up to finish it.
I've never dreamed about my characters. I wonder if that's a bad sign.
To the OP, let's get Freud on this... The answer is sex! No, scrap that. Let me ask you this- what does LORT mean to you? Did you see the movie?
Haven't even seen the movie. All it means to me is a big book with lot's of world-building, which is kind of the opposite of my WIP.
But, there is a little Freudian psychoanalysis in the novel, which I have some doubts about. It could be my mind showing me that psychoanalytic methods like dream analysis are interesting and I should be confident in including it.
Or King and Harris are father figures, LOTR is 'fantasy' and the dining hall refers to an oral fixation. I'll let you assemble those pieces...
