Well, its characters are, and that means I need to devote the afternoon to writing (once my classes are over and I've eaten a little lunch). You see, my characters had been talking and interacting all night while I slept, and they gave me a rather interesting dream.
I dreamed last night that I was with a film star... though now the identity of the star escapes me. It's not the first time I've dreamed of film stars. I always pick the weird ones, too, the ones I'm not at all attracted to, like Rutger Hauer, Bobcat Goldthwait, etc. I once dreamed Desi Arnaz had asked my mom to marry me, and she was trying to urge me into it, even though he was really, really old (he died less than a week after I'd had the dream).
Anyway, I had separated from my husband and hadn't seen my two kids, and this star was trying to woo me into becoming his significant other, furnishing his fabulous apartment with stuff he thought I'd want, etc. I was holding back, cautious, wanting to visit my kids and husband, but when I went to our house (a brownstone in Chicago, a place and kind of house I would never live in, mind you), I discovered that my husband had left for Europe (probably in anger that I'd left) and the kids were living with my mother-in-law.
The frightening part of this is that everything was unemotional, as if I was afraid to feel anything about my husband, or this actor guy, or my own kids. I was numb, rather like the female character of my play is feeling. I kept wondering, while dreaming, what was going to happen to wake me up, and I realized that the only thing which could break me out of the misty funk I was in was my husband--his physical presence, his touch, a word of caring or recognition.
I woke up, and suddenly I knew what to do with my characters. They fell into place beautifully, and I knew that my main character had to know, in some real, certain way, that her husband wouldn't abandon her, that he'd be glued to her no matter how broken she was. Only then could she heal. If she thought he could get up and leave, she'd leave him first, just so that she wasn't the one left behind. And he needed the same assurance, that she wouldn't leave him like she'd left her own father, left so many other boyfriends before she'd met him, left so many jobs, left places and friends, anything that wore on her too much. His greatest fear was that she would take off, and he'd never see her again.
Heavy stuff for a morning, I know, but I appreciate my characters working through this for me, so that I could have the answers when I woke.
Now if I could just figure out who that film star was.
I never remember my dreams. All my good stuff seems to come from my subconscious brain but I rarely get to know what it is until I'm actually putting it on paper.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you've had this opportunity to write.
My dreams don't tend to stick around either, though when they do they are useful; the last one I remember was about a year ago, and I don't even remember much of that. I know it involved two of my primary characters, ones who'd had something of an adversarial character dynamic (sort of; the last time I tried explaining those two to someone, it took me two nights' worth of IMs), and one was teaching, or just showing, the other something. I don't remember it too well, but it got me looking into the way those two interacted.
ReplyDeleteI know you will fingure it out... if there is anything i can do, just ask and it will be yours.
ReplyDeletebest of luck.
I say the film star was George C Scott or if you like them a bit tanned then George Peppard.
ReplyDeleteIf your characters have life then if you let them they will live them and all you have to do is chronicle the life they lead.