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Ten Thousand Dreams

Posted on by Patrick
A cloud in the sky

Way back in my Uni­ver­si­ty days[1]As a stu­dent; I’ve nev­er real­ly left the place., one of my friends had a fat paper­back copy of a book titled Ten Thou­sand Dreams Inter­pret­ed. It was a strange book, full of all kinds of psy­chob­a­b­ble, and a list of dreams and their alleged mean­ings. We looked up a lot—a lot—of dreams. One sticks out in my mind to this day, main­ly because of the hyper-weird speci­fici­ty (or the hyper-spe­cif­ic weird­ness) of it:

To see a horse in human flesh, descend­ing on a ham­mock through the air, and as it nears your house is meta­mor­phosed into a man, and he approach­es your door and throws some­thing at you which seems to be rub­ber but turns into great bees, denotes mis­car­riage of hopes and use­less endeav­ors to regain lost valuables. 

—Ten Thou­sand Dreams Inter­pret­ed, by Gus­tavus Hind­man Miller

And no, I did­n’t remem­ber that off the cuff[2]Though I’ve yet to for­get, over the last thir­ty years, the phrase “a horse in human flesh”, and trust me, I’ve tried.. I just copied ‘n’ past­ed it from the ever-help­ful Project Guten­berg’s copy of Ten Thou­sand Dreams Inter­pret­ed.

Turns out it’s in the pub­lic domain. Also turns out I’ll be mak­ing use of it in “Dried Flow­ers”[3]aka “Palimpses­ts”., which has more than a few dream sequences.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 As a stu­dent; I’ve nev­er real­ly left the place.
↑2 Though I’ve yet to for­get, over the last thir­ty years, the phrase “a horse in human flesh”, and trust me, I’ve tried.
↑3 aka “Palimpses­ts”.

Top and tail

Posted on by Patrick
Dried flowers tied with a ribbon

Here’s the first thing in my cur­rent WiP, “Dried Flowers”:

Ded­i­cat­ed to my dad, JJ, the way I want to remem­ber him.

He intro­duced me to some of my favourite authors, most­ly by for­get­ting to send back the “no I don’t want the Selec­tion of the Month” card to the Sci­ence Fic­tion Book Club[1]This is how I first encoun­tered, among oth­ers, Michael Swan­wick and William Gib­son..

And the final thing in “Dried Flow­ers” (don’t wor­ry, it’s not a spoil­er; just a post-text epi­graph[2]Post­graph?):

I have always imag­ined that Par­adise will be a kind of library.

—Jorge Luis Borges

…and now, back to writin’.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 This is how I first encoun­tered, among oth­ers, Michael Swan­wick and William Gibson.
↑2 Post­graph?

Some faint aurora

Posted on by Patrick

It’s been a while since I went out chas­ing auro­ra. Tonight the clouds stayed away, and the tem­per­a­ture, while chilly, did­n’t feel like it was going to kill me. I got a cou­ple shots of the auro­ra, faint and hug­ging the north­ern horizon…

Aurora borealis
Aurora borealis

…and also an hour or so’s worth of star trails, includ­ing what looks like an irid­i­um flare. (It looks like my cam­era moved at some point ear­ly in the hour. I did­n’t jos­tle it; maybe the wind shift­ed it slightly.)

Star Trails

Daisies & tulips

Posted on by Patrick
Tulips and daisies

I’m sure peo­ple assume I’m buy­ing these for Kath­leen[1]I mean, I am., but I see them prob­a­bly more than she does, what with work-from-home etc.

Daisies and tulips

Nerdy details: 50mm, f/1.8, 1/4000s, ISO 100. Tak­en in full noon sun­light stream­ing through a south window.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 I mean, I am.

A moment of clarity

Posted on by Patrick
Dried flowers tied with a ribbon

This after­noon, wash­ing dish­es and lis­ten­ing to music, I had a writ­ing epiphany. The song “Moment of Clar­i­ty” by 13 Engines popped up in the rotation…

…and one part of it, specif­i­cal­ly, strikes a chord on my cur­rent WiP.

A moment of clar­i­ty is all that’s required of me
And all oth­er places and oth­er times, they’re wav­ing good­bye
Good­bye

Yeah, that’s all the con­text you’re gonna get for now. Let me know if you’re inter­est­ed in read­ing this once it’s all done, though.

Semantle

Posted on by Patrick

I’m real­ly only sav­ing this for my own rec­ol­lec­tion. I man­aged to “win” Seman­tle on my first try (27 guess­es but it’s still a victory).

#GuessSim­i­lar­i­tyGet­ting close?
27sur­geon100.00FOUND!
26surgery61.15988/1000   
18pro­ce­dure44.05890/1000   
16proc­tol­o­gist41.20844/1000   
17proc­tol­ogy37.50722/1000   
15zool­o­gist28.61(cold)
23pro­ce­dures25.75(cold)
5zool­o­gy16.66(cold)
12zoo14.00(cold)
22pro­ce­dur­al12.90(cold)
8amber­gris12.20(cold)
13zoom10.33(cold)
3[exple­tive deleted]10.31(cold)
4an9.07(cold)
24task8.14(cold)
14zoomer7.36(cold)
25tasks6.16(cold)
6ontol­ogy5.91(cold)
7zeal­ous5.78(cold)
19proces­sor5.21(cold)
21pro­duce5.02(cold)
1lat­ter[1]the pre­vi­ous day’s word2.83(cold)
11pork2.66(cold)
20process1.95(cold)
9feldspar1.38(cold)
2sparkle1.35(cold)
10not­ed0.32(cold)

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 the pre­vi­ous day’s word

13 things about “Dried Flowers”

Posted on by Patrick
Dried flowers tied with a ribbon

Thurs­day Thir­teen, the late edition.

(Remem­ber Thurs­day Thir­teens? How about Ran­dom Flick­r­blog­ging? No? Sigh.)

Mov­ing on. Here are 13 things that you’ll find once my sto­ry “Dried Flow­ers” is avail­able for reading.

  1. Unre­li­able 3rd-per­son narration
  2. Palimpses­ts [1]I mean, the work­ing title was “Palimpses­ts”
  3. Flo­ri­le­gia
  4. HIC SVNT DRACONES
  5. Library apart­ment
  6. Birth­day cake [2]HAP BIRT NAO
  7. Romans à clé [3]Well, kind of
  8. Whol­ly invent­ed books
  9. An auto­graph seeker
  10. Snow falling upward
  11. Over­heard conversations
  12. Women who take male noms de plume
  13. Acros­tics

ICYW: “Dried Flow­ers” is my cur­rent work in progress. For­mer­ly titled “Palimpses­ts”, the sto­ry is about a library whose books all seem to be eras­ing themselves.

This sto­ry­telling is sup­port­ed by a grant from the Man­i­to­ba Arts Coun­cil.

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 I mean, the work­ing title was “Palimpses­ts”
↑2 HAP BIRT NAO
↑3 Well, kind of

Good News, Everyone

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

Some good—no, great—news on the writ­ing front: I’ve been award­ed a writ­ing grant by the Man­i­to­ba Arts Coun­cil.

The project I’ll be work­ing on is a novel­la, titled “Palimpses­ts”[1]Work­ing title; I’m also con­sid­er­ing “Dried Flow­ers”, about a woman liv­ing in a library where all the books are slow­ly eras­ing them­selves. She has a com­pan­ion who tries their best to rewrite the erased works, with vary­ing lev­els of suc­cess. She’s also haunt­ed by strange dreams.

Eight works are fea­tured in the sto­ry, some based on real-world books[2]Not quite a roman à clef, but per­haps a roman de romans à clef, hein?, oth­ers whol­ly invented.

I’d been work­ing on the project back in the summer—it was one of the pieces I was deal­ing with dur­ing my writ­ing retreat—but when I sub­mit­ted the grant paper­work in mid-Octo­ber, I quite delib­er­ate­ly pushed it to the back of the queue.

Now it’s come back to the front, of course. I got word on Fri­day after­noon about the grant, and as I write this—Saturday evening—I’ve got the 8 palimpses­ts select­ed, with thumb­nail notes about the new text. I’ve had some inspi­ra­tions about the rest of the sto­ry too, the world June (the hero) has left, the world she’s liv­ing in now, and the world she vis­its in her dreams.

I’m excit­ed. This has the poten­tial to be a very good sto­ry. It won’t be easy to write, and I don’t intend to make it easy to read. Good luck to us all.

In oth­er good writin’ news: The good stuff is now avail­able in my province. In my city, in fact.

Writers' Tears Irish Whiskey
At last!

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Work­ing title; I’m also con­sid­er­ing “Dried Flowers”
↑2 Not quite a roman à clef, but per­haps a roman de romans à clef, hein?

WiP updates

Posted on by Patrick
A torch against a dark background

I spent the last week or so updat­ing the out­line to “Praise the Torch When ´Tis Burned” (work­ing title, but I’m pret­ty attached to it). I got to the end—a final con­fronta­tion between The Drag­on and the ship’s-queen—and real­ized I did­n’t know exact­ly how I want­ed it to end.

Today, wash­ing dish­es, I had an inter­est­ing insight that might solve my prob­lem. In the first draft, the sto­ry was told as a con­fes­sion to an unnamed 3rd par­ty. As I start­ed the 2nd draft, I dis­card­ed that idea; it did­n’t work, mechan­i­cal­ly. But I still liked the idea of the sto­ry-as-con­fes­sion, and now, I think I might have a way to bring it back in.

Also, as the idea unfold­ed in my head (while my hands were warm and soapy), it expand­ed my under­stand­ing of the ship’s-queen and The Dragon.

This could work. (I mean, it could back­fire, too; but it could work.)

The title, for those that a) don’t know and b) would like to, is tak­en from a stan­za in Hávamál, or The Say­ings of Odin:

At evening praise the day, the torch when ´tis burned,
the blade when ´tis tested, the maid when she is married,
the ice when ´tis crossed, the ale when ´tis drunk.

…rough­ly. (Depend­ing on the translation.)

This is also the source of one of my favourite say­ings: “Praise ice when over it.” It’s a very win­try ver­sion, in my mind, of “don’t count your chick­ens till they hatch”.

Pho­to by Igor Lep­ilin on Unsplash.