Friday, January 25, 2008

The Public Life of Writing... In My Dreams?

Do you ever dream about celebrities?

I've heard it's pretty common for some people to dream about movie and TV stars. Certainly, I've had that one about Brad Pitt (which actually included his brother Doug... have you ever seen a picture of Doug Pitt? He's actually a fairly good looking guy, but his brother is Brad Pitt, so standing next to Brad he looks like a schlub.) I've also dreamed that I was a pilot on Battlestar Galactica, complete with SciFi Channel CGI effects.

That all seems pretty normal to me.

Lately -- okay, really since becoming a science fiction professional in '01-- I've also started dreaming about, well, SF/F celebrities. Neil Gaiman visits my subconscious a lot. If you've ever been to a convention party where I'm in that sort of mood, you may have heard me tell the first rather embarrassing dream I had that involved Gaiman. It's not really repeatable here mostly because this is a public forum and I would absolutely DIE if it got back to him. But, you know, ask me if you see me and I'll happily tell you all the gory details (unless of course you happen to BE Neil Gaiman, in which case I will deny all knowledge of this).

Anyway, Gaiman has mutated over the years to represent fame -- particularly the fame I have yet to achieve. This association has been fueled by my son's strange attachment to Gaiman. When Mason was quite little, perhaps a year and a half, he imprinted on a picture of Neil that appeared on the cover of LOCUS. He actually carried it around with him and wanted us to play peek-a-boo with Gaiman's face. It was very odd, and, perhaps not surprisingly, Gaiman became a feature in my own mind as well.

My alternate personality wrote over on my LiveJournal about a dream she had last night which involved another local writing celebrity -- actually several, and that made me wonder how *I* would feel if I stumbled across a post like this where someone dreamed about ME. And it made me think about the public life of a writer in general, because, as I confess in the other post, I have created in my own mind rather complicated relationships with people I really don't know at all. But because they've achieved a certain amount of fame in our community, I react to them in ways that are fraught with meaning -- both in my real life (tm) and in dream-time.

Weird, huh?

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Astro Alert: Pluto Enters Capricorn

Here's the latest, breaking planetary news from Astrology.com:

Are you ready to climb the ladder of success? How about accomplishing a long sought after goal? With transforming Pluto entering ambitious Capricorn on January 25, you will have the opportunity to achieve something valuable for yourself -- as well as for the world.In the past 13 years, while Pluto transited through Sagittarius, it was important to explore and evaluate your beliefs, morals and ethics. Now, responsibility and self-reliance should be your focus. Certainly those who know the value of hard work will be rewarded during this time. So, figure out which obstacles you're ready to face -- and overcome. There’s a big world out there with plenty of peaks to scale, just waiting for you to make your mark!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Over at SF Novelists Again

I have a very short ramble about my writing process called "Process, Oh Process" over at SF Novelists today.