Be careful what you dream about

Have I told you that I finished the editing of my book last week? To be honest, I was completely at a loose end.

Someone once said that writers hate to write, but love to have written… I could not disagree with this statement more. I agree that there were times when frustration had the upper hand or when my mind changed overnight about a chapter that felt wrong the night before, and started to work by itself the next day (I think fatigue had a lot to do with it). But when I consider the journey that led to my first finished novel, I cannot help but feel both incredibly grateful and a tiny bit disappointed that I may never experience the first-time euphoria of finally getting a paragraph or section right, after as much trial and error… again.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that there will be times when my next novel will be impossibly challenging, but I suspect that I would be somewhat comforted by the knowledge that I had overcome something vaguely similar in the past.

But you know all of that anyway, I’ve told you about it in previous posts.

So ‘what’s next?’, you ask.

The search for an agent or publisher begins.

But first I’d like to tell you about a dream I had a couple of nights ago…

I dreamt that my book had been published – with NO title. Not in a cool ‘formerly known as Prince, now just call me Symbol’ kind of way – with a blank front page. No, for some reason they had printed the entire template page instead, as in:

[Front page]
[Insert title here]
[Author]

Horrifying. I actually thought to myself, how will anyone know how to find my book? The one with the empty template as a title page!

But as with any other dream of this nature, I woke up with the awful relief and realisation that of course, it didn’t actually happen.

And here’s something even more bizarre. The other day I read that some quantum physicists believe our dreams are being played out somewhere, right now, as we speak.

Right.

I’m the first to entertain the idea that there are other dimensions out there, but I have to admit, this one seems a little far-fetched, even for me.

Can you imagine? A version of you out there at school without your homework done or without having studied (or in my case, a piano exam without any prior practice).

Do they really think that at one stage you’ve shown up somewhere with only one leg of your trousers on, struggling to get your other leg in?

And why is it always a school thing too?

No, seriously. I’m pretty sure that all I need to do is to come up with a working title for my book.

It’s just my ‘subconscious’ trying to say “Come on, pick a title already. I’m dying here! And why am I wearing half a pair of trousers?”

“Keep quiet, Symbol… Go sell your title-less book.”