2003-02-18 11:16 a.m.
Sleeping Dreams and Waking Ones

I dreamed last night of Becky, who is pregnant, and her husband. They were stretching her tummy so I could see different parts of the baby; if they stretched it a certain way, I could see the shape of the baby's hand through her belly skin.

I had another dream that someone came to visit me in a tiny barn deep in the forest. It had a loft. I can not recall now who the visitor was, though I remember that he (it was a he) snuck in and hid behind the open door and then startled me when I came to see what the noise was. Now that I am awake, thinking back on the dream, it distinctly reminds me of the hut where Lady Chatterley and her lover would meet, in the infancy of their affair.

I think today will be a semi-productive day, at least in the deep thought department. All of my articles for this week are finished and sent in, so now my mind, naturally, turns toward the novel. The Novel. The Novel I've barely begun, but has been waiting to be written for as long as I can remember. How many years will I have to think about it before I actually DO something about it? At least now I've come to a point where I feel that thinking about it, seriously thinking about it, can be almost as productive as sitting down to write it. That's good, as I will be less hard on myself, less driven towards self-deprecation. But on the other hand, thinking and not doing only prolongs the hard part, the dirty work, the rolling up the sleeves part, the elbow grease, the childbirth, which like real childbirth, I am certain will be acutely painful. Heh. I think I am a coward. I am afraid of my own book. I already know I fear success. But I also know that I want to extinguish that fear. The book, in its published form, will be a huge step in eradicating that fear. I envision myself suddenly breaking free of it, but I know that if I ever do, it will be a far more slow, often painstaking, and subtle process than I imagine. For now, it's off to the daily grind, where I am still semi-content, at 24, to tell people I see that I went to high school with, when they ask what I'm doing with myself (and they always do), that I'm "still plugging away at the Great American Novel".

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