Weaving The Dream

Well, last Friday I received another rejection of my manuscript, The Shadow Weaver, blasting my hope of working with an agent who had generously offered to look at my first three chapters again if I made some revisions.

Unfortunately, it appears that the changes I made weren’t enough to “involve her emotionally.”

Sigh!  I went into a funk.  One of those maybe-I-shouldn’t-be writing-fiction-or-even-writing-at-all funks.  You know—the one where you want to go hide somewhere like a deep, dark closet or a deserted island somewhere and just bawl or throw a tantrum.

Well, I don’t have a deep, dark closet—I live in an 1840’s Greek Revival farmhouse.  They had wardrobes back then, not big closets.  And, since I live in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains, there are no islands close by.

So here is what I did instead.  Maybe these five tips will help you get through your next rejection, since we all get them, sooner or later.

1. Have a tantrum even if there is no island.  I shed some tears for a few minutes and then visualized throwing myself down on my studio floor and screaming and kicking.  While I may not have done it physically, the visualization seemed to help.  And that way, I didn’t scare our dog, Duncan, into searching for his own closet.
2. Seek comfort from a friend.  After my modified tantrum, I wondered, “Who could I tell that would understand and sympathize?”  First, I called my husband who is very understanding and supportive but isn’t a writer.  I needed the sympathy and empathy of writers.  After talking with one friend by phone, I then sent out emails to several other writer friends.  Over the next 24 hours they all either called or sent emails sympathizing and empathizing and generally reassuring me that I was a good writer and there was a home for my story out there somewhere.  Then I had some dark chocolate—it’s a good friend too!
3. Go for a walk, work in your garden, or indulge in a hot bath.  Releasing some of that disappointment and stress through physical activity and relaxation brings about a sense of calm, clarity, and perspective.  I took Duncan for a walk and recalled how many times J. K. Rowling was rejected before an agent took her manuscript for Harry Potter.  Was I going to quit now?
4. Get back on the horse.  I know the wisdom—getting back up on the horse keeps you from being afraid of the horse.  It also keeps you from becoming paralyzed, from not moving forward.  The friend I talked to on Friday, gave me some sympathy and then, even more important, some valuable information about some publishers.  So on Saturday, I sent out another query with a synopsis and the first three chapters according to the guidelines of the publisher.
5. Keep creating.  Now that you are back up and swinging again, don’t sit around waiting for the reply.  Eons could pass—and often do in this business.  Instead, move onto the next project.  Give yourself something to look forward to each morning other than the empty mailbox or the quiet phone.  Take a deep breath and write—or paint, or dance, or compose.

The bottom line is our art is more than what we do.  It is who we are.  I am a writer.  I can’t stop writing, whether I get to share that with the world the way I want to or not.

Tantrums are a good thing.  So is getting back on the horse.  Call your friends.  Keep writing, keep creating.  And go have some really good dark chocolate. 

In my dream, I am walking through my (waking reality) house to put something I am holding out back.  I come out of a front door but instead of walking around to the back yard, I open another door in the front onto a corridor that leads through the house to another door in the back.  As I step into the corridor and close the door behind me, I think “This is a shorter route.  Why do we get stuck traveling in the same patterns all the time?”

Then I notice that there is a door on my right that I remember leads to another part of the house.  I open the door on an unfinished bathroom.  The shower and sink are installed but not the toilet.  There is a large radiator-like fixture in there as well.  I come out and see another door on the same side.

I open it into a large room that, at first, looks like everyone’s ideal media room but the room appears unfinished, sculpted in what looks like Styrofoam. I think how big the space is and have an idea where everything goes.  Then I turn and look back in the direction of the door I came through and what has previous been black and white is now in full color. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a sense this isn’t real, that this part of the house doesn’t exist.

I see a kitchen with a sink, open shelves above it and a large island/bar.  There is a woman standing there that resembles our mail deliverer who is there to help me.  And I say “I could give workshops here!”  She nods yes, says I could and because of her response, that she sees what I see, I think, oh it is real!  I am so excited about the possibilities, and when I turn back to the media area it is a finished, furnished, comfortable living room.

Now I see an open staircase going up to another floor and I investigate and discover another sitting/living area to the left and know that there are bedrooms beyond on the right – a place, I think, where people who come for my retreats and workshops could stay..  I am so excited by the possibilities.  I wake up.

The title of this dream is appropriate since I have had other dreams about this house having more space, more rooms, yet undiscovered, yet unfinished, and I am always happy about the extra space, regardless of its condition.

Two things strike me about this dream, however.  The first is the comment to myself at the beginning about moving out of old patterns and paths.  Doing this in our lives and our creativity, opens us up to both seeing things in a new way and to discovery.  I would not have found this space in the dream if I hadn’t taken a different path.

The second interesting thing is that in many of my previous dreams the extra space that is off the family room of our waking life house, has, to this point been in the raw or unfinished state.  In this dream, with the exception of the toilet and some paint in the bathroom, this space is finished.  In fact, I remember in the dream having the recollection that a couple and their small child had lived there for a year so the space was even previously inhabited.

This dream had me springing out of bed this morning, humming with the idea of news paths and hoping that the image of a space to teach – a finished space—implies that the I am moving closer to being able to do the kind of teaching and other work that I want to do.  That soon, I will be able to live in this new space, i.e. this new place in my life.  The space is comfortable with cheery colors, comfy furniture and natural materials.  Roomy but not overwhelming.  Intimate, actually, the way I like to work with people.

So what new paths do you need to take?  And what creative space or creative dream do you yet need to claim?

Potential and possibility shimmer in that space and that dream.  Maybe I should title the dream, Spirit House, instead.

Part of the joy of celebrating a new year is letting go of and saying goodbye to the old year, especially if that year has been particularly challenging.The year both my mother and grandfather died, and the year my husband’s father and then mother died were two years I remember being particularly glad to say good bye to, embracing the following New Years with a sense of hope and relief.