Anna DeStefano's Blog, page 27

The Soul of the Matter…

Platform. Everyone says you MUST have one in social media. Platform is your brand. It tells folks what you're about. "The Soul of the Matter," is what I've come up with for my particular bent on the world, after reviewing back blog and Facebook and Twitter streams.

It's a focus I chose organically about two years ago,when my world view was skewed by surgery and scary medical predictions and a  chaotic publishing environment that's become even more crazy since. If I was going to write, blog and participate in social media, it had to go deeper. I wanted to be saying something meaningful about how I see my world, every time I put my thoughts onto paper or typed them into the computer.

I'm in the entertainment business, and that'll never change as long as I publish in commercial fiction. But I wanted to feel even closer than before to what I'm writing. And I wanted that to spill over into my weekly blogging and the things and people I focus on in social media. I want it to be about heart and soul, above all else.

For two years I've posted into my "Revising a Year" blog series. It's morphing now into "Anna's Soul of the Matter." You'll see it at the top of the category list to the right. And in each blog post I write forward.

Whether I'm writing women's fiction or romance or suspense or psychic fantasy/sci-fi, or chatting about dreams or my teenager or wacky current events and happenings or psychic stuff or the nuts and bolts of writing, I'm pouring my heart into the words. That's my daily goal. That's what keeps me coming back, keeps my writing, no matter the stumbling blocks.

That's the kind of community I'd like all this content and sharing and re-tweeting to build. Folks looking deeper and wanting more and loving the insight as much as the chatty, easy-to-read posts and pics and one-liners.

Let's share the soul of all that matters to us. If that's your cup of tea, you've stumbled across the right place. Welcome!

How We Write: Revising WITHOUT Fear

I received editorial revisions the other day. I'm a multi-published author. So, no big deal, right? WRONG. Revisions are hard. They're built that way. If they were easy, everyone would be published traditionally and selling millions. And any working writer that tells you differently is just plain fibbing.This post is for everyone who wants to see their words in print, the published and the unpublished and the newly "WINNING" nanowrimo masses and those who think it's always easier in someone else's writing reality. 

The reality is, the better you revise, the better your book will typically read for your reader. The more push it will have from your imprint. The more established you will find yourself within the very small world of publishing. Those who're self-publishing without the benefit of a third-party editor, you're in the same boat, except that you have to see the holes in your story that are more and more difficult to see the deeper you get into creating it. So we all schedule and accept it into our process the way you do everything else right?

Yeah. No.

Why is it so hard?

Two reasons, one that veers toward mechanics and one that takes a head trip inward to the heart of all that we do for our creative dreams.

1. Revising is analysis. It's ripping apart something we've created with great care, seeing it through new eyes, and throwing out, reworking, and going back to the beginning as much as is needed to make what we thought we'd created actually appear in a reader's mind. I personally believe everyone can be taught this set of tools. Some will do it better and more naturally than others, but everyone can learn how to make what they've done better. Those who refuse to learn are setting themselves up to fail. That's the tough-love part of this post, and of the hands-on rewriting workshops I travel all over the country teaching.

If you don't think you need to rewrite, if you don't want to look at the ugly just under the surface of what you think is beautiful just the way you've written it, if you don't want to hear others' take on what works and what doesn't, really hear it from the standpoint of doing whatever it takes to make your story come alive outside the world that lives and breathes in your own imagination, well that's a personal choice. In my opinion, a lazy one. Self-indulgent and self-fulfilling. It's a road easy to veer down, and difficult to talk yourself back from. It's a landscape of beautiful but blinding trees that will forever distract you from the forest (the reading world) you say you want to make your home.

You might be asking if the stakes are that high and the solution is that simple (learn the craft of rewriting if you want to become the best writer/creator you can be), why don't more writers embrace revisions?

2) Revising is terrifying.

Which is a dynamic that both sucks and never really goes away. Can we dig deep enough? Can we let go of the tangents and wrong turns that we love so much. Can we produce the depth of character and story and plotting that will make this story sing? And more basically, will we fail?

More than any other job I've had, and I've made mega bucks more doing a lot of things than I ever have writing fiction, the best creative writing begins with embracing the very real possibility that you will fail. Only when we risk everything, only when we're willing to throw every word out every day in order to rewrite what truly needs to be there, do we begin creating from our hearts.

Rewriting requires us to listen to ourselves (and, really, don't we all begin writing in order to quiet those inner voices?). It requires us to listen to our editors and readers and critique partners, whose jobs aren't to exclaim as they turn every page just how wonderful and magical our words are.

In our revisions we face ourselves more honestly, I believe, than we ever do in the draft. Drafting is about momentum and believing we can do it. Rewriting is about stopping and accepting where we've fallen short, then having the courage to dive back in and work harder, work even when it hurts, for the sake of the story we've only just begun.

As I teach (and I try to believe myself every time I get a revision letter), you must put your self-esteem on the shelf when you revise. Rewriting isn't about you or your writing skills or being rejected or accepted by your editor. It's about a story that needs to be told, and readers who will never experience it if you don't do the work. It's about whether or not you have what it takes to keep going.

Terrifying, yes.

Doable, yes.

So what if it feels bad for a moment or two, or a day or two, or a week or month or two, until you get it right? Revising is your job. Revising is your storytelling, at it's most unpredictably beautiful. You owe it to your stories and the world waiting to read them. Get good at it. Get to work.

The Psychic Realm: Apportation Rocks Our World!

While we get serious about sleep science in next week's Dream Theories, lets go fantastical about flow of energy between this dimension and others. In other words, how the "other" worlds around us mess with things in ours.

One of the cool things about researching sci-fi/fantasy novels where I get to make up my own rules, is starting with some already-defined dynamics that I get to lift from particle and quantum physics. You know, the physical laws that tell us how things move and flow, and how this type of matter interacts with that kind, and what the boundaries are, and the state of things as we know them. Then, as the writer, you get to blow things out of their defined buckets and have some fun.

Add in the parapsychological world of thought, which some of the physical laws lend themselves to if only we could bend a few known factors here and there, and we're cooking with gas.

Apportation is one of these areas, where if you can suspend belief about how we currently think light and matter flow, and if you will accept that multiple dimensions exist on different planes within the same space, moving at different speeds so they're typically invisible to one another, then you can arrive at the premise that someone or something from one dimension could be capable of moving objects within another.

If you check the Skeptics's Dictionary (a lovely way NOT to write something that folks will roll their eyes at when you're creating worlds from your own imagination, BTW), you'll be told that when an "apport" happens (something moves unassisted) during seance, it's most likely a hoax. But what about the rest of the time, when something we put down simply disappears as soon as we turn our back, reappears somewhere we wouldn't/couldn't have put it, or when something thrusts itself into our lives from out of nowhere with no clear explanation for where it came from?

These are most often signs in my life to pay attention, slow down, speed up, or just plain give up the control I'm clinging to. Yes, they happen to me. So when I began reading parapsychological texts that suggested that there's a clear pattern to many of these occurrences, even a pre-determined intent from a spirit (from energy) in another dimension from our own, my ears perked up. I HAD to write this into my next Legacy family. This would be their gift: harnessing energy, and the abilities that doing so would give them to defeat whatever foe I'll put in their way. In other words, opening themselves to the possibility and power of harnessing intentional intervention into our reality from another.

Have these things ever happened to you: objects appearing, disappearing, moving, transforming, then moving or changing back? Odd things showing up in odd places just at the time when a need for them comes along? Unexplainable interference into your path of things that divert you into another direction that turned out to be either a boon or a disaster? It's so easy to call these events coincidences, but are they?

Are we imagining these odd things when they happen? Are we over-reacting? Let me ask that in another way. When we turn our backs on them and refuse to heed their warnings or insight, do we find ourselves better or worse off? This is the question that ultimately changes my protagonist in Haunted Legacy. It's one thing to ignore the escalating coincidences cropping up in your path as "not possible." It's another thing entirely, for a ruthlessly analytical person to scoff at the very real results of either heeding or ignoring the messages being sent with each unusual psychic occurrence trying to capture your attention.

Tell us a story from your life. What attention-worthy apports have stopped and made you think that there might be something metaphysical going on, and what was the result of you following their lead?

Next Week: Let's talk about another topic near and dear to my fantasy WIP's heart. Kenetic children. See you there!

Dream Theories: Falling and Flying Your Way to Tomorrow

Do falling dreams predict an incident to come? No. Well, maybe, for some of us who feel the energy of our dreams in our waking worlds. Bwahahaha… For others, you could simply be "falling" into sleep. Or, there might be deeper psychological meanings. Let's take a look!

Do you fall or fly, surrounded by vivid imagery and wrapped up in a story line? Are you feeling anxious or soaring? These are key indicators that you're mind's processing how you're feeling about something that's happening or about to happen in your life that you're worried about. And if you're always falling and never hit bottom? Maybe you're feeling out of control, with no sense that you can take charge. You're, quite simply, taking a leap of faith.

Far from crashing into the ground meaning that you're going to die, it can often mean that you're ready to make the choice you've been avoiding. A good or a bad choice? The setting and subject matter of the dream's plot can help you cipher that. Which, again, begs for the same dedication I've been pushing for all along–keep those dream journals and remind yourself of everything else that's going on while you sleep, not just the most startling of the images your mind plays for you.

Other things to think about:

What are you holding on to just before you fall?
What are you letting go of?
What am I afraid of?
What do I want, that I can't have, until I let myself go?
And, more importantly, how do you feel about the loss of equilibrium/control once we do let go?

Because, sometimes, we're flying as we soar through the air, NOT falling ;o) It can still be scary and out of control and extreme, but when we choose to fly, we're free. We rise. We float. We're high above the cares and concerns, typically, of a falling dream. It feels wonderful, often gentle.

Flying in dreams is about freedom. Exhilaration. You're in your natural element (because so many of us fly in our every day lives, right?). It could mean you're finally liberated from whatever's been troubling you (perhaps something that's before now inspired a falling dream). Flying can represent consciousness–finally seeing what you need to do, and being spiritually ready to do that very thing.  It's growth. It's YOU.

What's your sky?  How high can you fly? What are your limits? These are the things you can explore in your soaring dreams.

Also, are you thrilled that your shackles are finally loosened? You're on your own. Are you ready? Are you ready to go where your mind is taking you?

Remember, no matter what I or anyone else says, these are your dreams. Your snapshot. Your mind. Take your dreams into your soul and figure it out. Find yourself there, and whatever you believe your world can be, it's yours!

And… Next Tuesday… Come back to Dream Theories to hear more about sleep from an expert in the field. Dr. Cecilia is a Clinical Psychologist, a PhD, and a hard-working sleep therapist. What are the myths and realities behind the science of sleeping that will make or break what we believe about dreaming? I can't wait to find out! "Dr. C" will be guest blogging every two weeks here at Dream Theories. She's a sci-fi/fantasy writer, too, which is how we hooked up. She's been a great resource for a lot of my research into the dream science I built into the first two Legacy books around. I know you're going to love her!

Psychic Realm update tomorrow. See you there ;o)

How We Write: Na-NO-Wri No!

There's a startling trend I notice each December: how few NANO participants create consistantly AFTER their November, head-bashing-against-the-wall, word count deadline. I'm not talking about less writing the month after the challenge. What's too common is that there will be NO writing in December at all. Which breeds no forward momentum of any consequence in January, February, etc…

Because we're burned out after such a grueling sprint? 50,000 words in a month leading up to a major holiday showdown with our sanity? Perhaps. Which begs the question, why do we systematically degrade that balance by throwing everything we can to the wolves while we focus on the very thing we don't want to be the enemy when we're done with our challenge: creatively writing toward a deadline every day. Why do we set ourselves up to fail, come December 1st?

Because we need a break to recoup our energy and muse? Yes. That's pretty obvious. NANO tends to throw any number any number of other things out of balance as we gorge ourselves on the exhaustion that is producing story. Relationships. Friendships. Family obligations. Other responsibilities. All of which we try to keep up with as much as needed while we burn out on our "craft." To the point that everything suffers by the end of the month (you know, right around the time that insignificant national holiday happens), including said story. Were exhausted. We need a break. And is it any wonder when that break extends beyond the weekend we promise ourselves will be the end of our time off–what with conflict and tension and backlash we've just spent a month convincing ourselves our writing causes in our lives? When wants to get back into the flow of that once we're out of it?

Or is it that when we wake from our November fugue state, we can't stand what we've created during our manic race? Have we just spent a month teaching ourselves that if we do commit to our writing and make it a priority above all else, we're still going to create crap?

A misconception that these series of HoWW posts have been trying to DEBUNK. It's not your writing, if any of the above is what's demotivating you come December, January, February, etc. I submit that it's the process of making your writing a unwieldy chore that's blocked you. 50k words in one month? Many of us not planning properly  before we begin to "write by the seats of our pants?" Not focusing on the beauty of the process or those wordsor how to integrate either of them into the hectic, everyday, non-NANO lives waiting to crash down on us when we're done?

NANO too often becomes an exercise in learning how NOT to write.Yet we're told it's inspiring and yields phenomenal results and teaches us determination and discipline. If that were the case, the majority of these manuscripts would be forgotten, never to be looked at again. So many lovely writing voices wouldn't be shutting down in December, often taking months to peak back out of their caves with a faint thought of trying something new.

What to do?

First, remember you're a creator of story, not a machine.  Very few of us can do well or even passably what NANOWRIMO suggests we should all be doing each November.

Second, picture a fragile boat on a choppy sea, being bounced around by forces beyond it's ability to sustain. Then picture someone dropping a hundred pounds of baggage on only one side of the boat. It'll stay afloat for a while, but eventually, that boat's going down no matter how hard you paddle. But if that same weight is balanced all over the boat, giving it more stability as you struggle toward a rocky shore, you'll actually have a better shot of getting where you want to go. You'll be less likely to give up, to wonder "What's the point," or to slip into all that watery nothingness because you're just too exhausted to go on.

We want to do NANO, because we're writers, and this is our kind of guilt-driven challenge. We don't produce enough. We don't make time for our stories. We don't force ourselves to write every day. Except, we're writers. We're creative, sensitive, and fragile, even while we're determined, hopeful and strong. We can do a mind-f**k on ourselves in under a month, if we push just the right buttons. And with NANO, too many of us do.

NANOWRIMO is about being a prolific novelist, not just a hobbyist. And that's great. But it's only a tool. It's not a destination. Yes, we should be writing every day, but not at the expense of our will to write. Don't do that to yourself the rest of this month or in December or beyond.

When you sit down to write, create the best sentence you possibly can, no matter how long it takes you or how few other sentences you produce today.Then morph that into the best paragraph you've ever written. Finish the scene better than you've ever motivated and conflicted and grown a character before. And that chapter you're trying to finish today, make it shine. THAT's what matters, as well as the next sentence and scene and chapter you'll attempt tomorrow, because you won't be afraid to come back and peak at what you did today.

Be a writer. A novelist. A creative soul. Every day. Don't let NANO get in the way of that come December 1st.

Dream Theories: Retrievers & Wolves & Seals, Oh My!

Dogs are best friends. Wolves are wisdom. Seals are over-the-top aspirations…Three of the animals readers asked me to share after my last Dream Theory post. But generic symbolism is just the beginning. It's not you. Do you dream about your dog, friendly or ferel wolves, swimming or land-locked or tame seals?

Ok, some linky links to start the day off right:

Remeber, it's your emotions about your dream symbols that matter the most.
The Huffington Post did a series on dreams and their meanings that you'll want to read.

That said, let's talk about you ;o)

Depending on the strength of what you're feeling about those golden retrieversin your dreams, you could be celebrating a growing friendship or mourning a relationship that's in trouble. What is going on in your life that's calling these friendly to your dreams (or, perhaps banishing them)?

Your wolves…Are they majestic and beautiful? Or sinister, insatiable, evil? How does your mind depict them in the midst of whatever else is going on in your sleeping world? Are you being stalked? Herded? Part of the pack? Fighting to get in or out? More often than not, wolf dreams are a manifestation of fear, and you're typically either facing what's threatening you or being consumed by it. Then again, in Native American culture, the wolf is a warrior associated with wisdom and healing.

And those seals…How much are they struggling and working in your dream? Are they curious or slaves to whatever they're doing? They can be playful and faithful (if what you're aspiring for is love); depict the drive for prosperity and success (if you're wanting closure for that which you strive for);  or represent spiritual understanding (if you're looking for the true meaning of what's harassing or overwhelming you).

There are no hard and fast rules for any of these interpretations.Your circumstances and your view of your world color everything you dream about, including the animal symbols (or familiars) that visit while you sleep. Dream interpretation is about looking deeper into your own reality and finding a personal mission that you hadn't recognized before. It's about intentionally seeing more of yourself, as you focus on the dream images that represent your innermost desires and fears.

Isn't this fun?

We're going to move on in next week's Dream Theories to falling and fly and flying dreams, but keep sending me those requests for animal dream interpretations, and I'll be sure to include them, too, until we run out of critters!

The Psychic Realm: Animal Totems

To continue this weeks animal theme, let's talk about the loyalty and protection of the animal spirits we attract. Yep. Totems. You know, metaphysical protection and guidance. Don't scoff, like I did at first. Animal imagery has played a large role in my fantasy work, at first unintentionally. The images you see on my covers came to me as my characters' dream sequences organically evolved. Then I began researching the underlying meanings of the animals I was weaving into my work, then the animals I've invited into my own life, the ones that fascinate me, and I began to wonder… What is it about animals that seem to comfort and inspire and challenge us creatively, the way nothing else does?

Keep in mind that I'm doing non-stop reading and research into all things interesting and barely there, to help me build an alternative contemporary world that will support the next series of books I'm crafting. The theory goes that we choose our animal totem or guidea in another dimension, before we begin our lives in this one. From birth, these loyal creatures then are powerfully attracted to us, bringing us what we need for your journey.

So, I guess it's pretty important what totem you choose, huh?

In fact, these critters will insist on being beside us as we walk this earth. What if we're initially scared of them? No matter. They know they're not dangerous to us. Stop running, the research says. Accept what these companions are trying to teach us. Don't deny the spiritual blessing that's trying to catch up with you every single day–even the stinky ones!

Those of us who've embraced our animal connections (this, coming from a woman who now mothers FIVE rescue cats) know first hand the quiet gifts living with our "familiars" can bring. Join in the insanity/collective my friends! Resistance is futile ;O)

Okay, back to the research stuff. Some of what I've read suggests that we each have nine animal totems. These totems are around your spirit: East, South, West, North, Above, Below and Within. The last two animals are walking beside you at all times; your Right Side (male) and your Left Side (feminine). While sometimes the living animal is around you, most often they are only the essence of the animal. Think of some of the fabulous Native American totems you've seen pictures of, and you'll get the idea.

The soul of the animals are said to be what you connect with, and many believe that animals have more highly developed souls than humans."Familiars," souls of a single animal, connect through energy (there's the fringe science that's so important to my fiction writing) to only one person, usually someone who has psychic or magical abilities–and there you have it, my current protagonist. Someone with the innate ability to channel and focus energy, so you can see how animal totems begin to play into her story, once she's aware of that aspect of her talents.

For the rest of us, think of totems as bonds, if you can't go any deeper into the parapsychological aspects of it than that.  Bonds with the purer spirit of animals who only want to please and comfort and inspire you to be better and happier and more successful, because they're in your life. What could be bad about that?

I'm talking more next week about animal meanings in dreams. I'll put a bit about animal spirit meanings in that dream theory post, as we move on to Kinetic Children in the Psychic Realm series. Until then, here's a great link to read more about animal totems.

Anyone have some personal animal stories you'd like to share?

How We Write: NANOWRIO and how we DON'T write!

I have a concern every November that the sheer quantity of words everyone participating in NANO produces won't result in finished pieces/novels that will ever be revised well enough to sell. But what cheers my heart every year is the sound of writers hitting their writing goals and learning a little more about what's blocking them.

Because, here's the thing. All writers arrive at this dream of creating and sharing our inner lives with the world, capable of absolutely shutting down our ability to write with nothing more than doubt and fear and frustration over how EASY it is for everyone else to do what is most difficult for us. When the reality is, IT'S DIFFICULT FOR EVERYONE.

Part of our job is learning how to write through the speed bumps of our inspiration and self-esteem and premonitions of failure. We have to believe in ourselves more than we do the growing pile of scenes and character sketches and rejected story lines that we ALL discard with every project.

This is called research and draft writing and immersing yourself in your project. It's a good sign, that you have something to throw away. That you've produced SOMETHING, anything, that shows you a new step to take and another idea to flesh out and a tangent you've already investigated and rejected that you don't have to spend any more time on.

Deciding WHAT NOT TO WRITE is just as important as writing forward in your draft. Learning that you can stop one idea and start on another without losing momentum is key to being a productive creative writer. Teaching yourself how to write your way out of the roadblocks and blind turns and dead-end corners of your process is what NANO is all about–not merely the sheer number of words you can type or write onto a page in 30 days.

In short, we have to learn not to indulge the wimpy, whiny, needy writer diva inside all of us who would love to lie about and wait for inspiration to strike, rather than writing through the hard times because that's what's going to get our story/book completed.

Goal setting. Confidence building. Tangible results from determined bursts of hard work. These are all amazing benefits of NANO's annual ritual.

Is 50k the end zone? No, not in my experience, watching this frenzy year after year.

As I said last week, what we need to learn most is how to write beautifully, with inspiration beyond how many nouns and verbs, etc. we've strung together in a day/week/month. To do that, we must research and plan, live and absorb the world around us, then revise and rewrite and carve out story within story within story, until we arrive at the true destination and purpose of each project.

It hurts, when I hear of the projects that get tossed into drawers, never to be returned to again, after the chaos of NANO subsides and writers are faced with thousands of words they don't feel they have the skill to finesse into something readable. I hope for these creative minds that they spend the next year learning the craft that will make their next rough drafts better, and help them rework and revise and rewrite the result of their next dash to the NANO finish line.

Alas, too few seem to.

But writers must also cultivate discipline and determination and belief that we can write when we set our minds to it, no matter how difficult the timing or obstacles might be. We must recognize what keeps us from writing and conquer that most of all, or the rest is moot. And for that reason alone, NANO is an exercise every writer should experience at least once.

Best of luck with your November. I hope it yields beautiful, challenging, exciting hours of writing that you'll continue into this year's December and beyond.

Write on!

Dream Theories: Animals. Instinct. Unconscious understanding. YOU!

Animals in dreams are our subconscious, our desires, our fears, our feelings, ourselves. "Uh, yeah." You're rolling your eyes, because everyone knows that. "But what does that mean for ME?"  Well, scoot over, hold onto your knickers and give me a minute.

My last Dream theories post  introduced the animal theme that'll take the rest of November to explore.

That was back at the end of August, then I took a blog sabbatical so I could explore my world and return, recharged and raring to entertain (alliteration is my new zen, BTW). So click back through it and catch up. I wouldn't want to leave anyone behind, because I let my brain out on holiday…

Our instincts have an animal component to them. You already knew that, too. We possess animal traits and urges and desires. In our dreams, these otherwise unconscious ways of processing and dealing with life bubble a little closer to the surface, showing us facets of ourselves we don't take time to see when we're awake.

But can we understand what our minds are showing us through animal imagery? Can we meet these animals in a more literal way and learn from them/ourselves? If we do find a way to be more lucid and interactive about our dreams, starting with remembering them as much as we possibly can, what do our animal inspirations tell us?

Let's see ;o)

So, you're keeping a dream journal by now, right? Jotting down what you can remember as soon as you wake. Reviewing dream patterns before you go to sleep at night, to reinforce them and achieve a bit of synergy. Focusing on color and emotion and sound and symbol. And now, the animals that appear.

Because they're not just random symbols. They're us. They're doing things and feeling things and wanting things and being affected by things, many of which are clues to how we're handling those very things in life. Here's a great article on this topic, before I launch into individual animal imagery. Educate yourself on one writer's perspective, then come back and care more about what I think ;o)

Overreaching theme in your animal dreams is what you want to pay attention to. The instict behind the creatures we dream about. What animal keeps reaccuring in your dream journal? What's happening in the dreams where that image comes to you? And, finally, what do those images mean within the context of your life. That's the kind of dream work that will open up the world for you.

Guess what a central them is for me… Cats of course. Which, as it turns out, most often represents a feminine theme. But in cat dreams, whether you're a man or a woman, you have to ask yoursek if the critters are domesticated or wild. Are they independent or tame? Are they fighting or struggling, or snuggling and nurturing? These are the details that would make your cat dreams different from mine. I tend to dream about kittens a lot. New beginnings. Seeing the world through new, inquisitive, playful eyes. Also, these dreams are about letting myself be open and dependent, rather than in control (NOT my happy place when I'm awake). Food for thought, every time the little dears show up.

Another common dream image for me: butterflies. It's not a random design choice that they're all over my blog and website and business cards and book promotions. They're me. I'm doing a Psychic Realm post tomorrow on Animal Totems, because my parapsychology research has reaffirmed my belief that everyone attracts a particular type of animal energy that's unique to their own reality. Butterflies have always been one of my "familiars."

Their symbolic meaning could be anything from joy and spirituality to creativity and romance. For me, once again they come in the midst of dream events where I'm exploring and beginning anew and searching for something I haven't experienced before. Like my kittens, they're playful and free and not worried about results, focusing instead on journey and discovery.

Next week (back to Mondays!), we'll work with more animal-specific dream imagery. If you have a favorite or want to know more about anything in particular, shout out in the comments. Freud, of course, had some interesting ideas. I also have notes on the importance of gender in animal dreams. That could be fun to explore ;o)

Until then, keep your dream journals by your bed and record every scrap you can remember when you wake. I'm dying to hear what you come up with next!

Things my Teenager Says: Youtube Tough Love!

"Whoever  Designed this road was insane!" No, that's not a Galaxy Quest quote. Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) as she faced the gauntlet through the chompers said, "Whoever wrote this episode should DIE."

 

 

 

My teen on the other hand is driving down his first truly twisting, maddening, winding path, all but bashing his head against the steering wheel, cursing the civil engineer who predertimed this path of most resistence.

Heh.

Actually, only a few minutes into a drive I know is challenging, because THAT'S THE POINT, I'm practically falling out of my seat laughing. Dangerous, what with the white-knuckled teen beside me who's still driving because I refuse to take back the wheel.

Why?

Because every day is a winding road, buddy!

 

 

 

I know, I know, I say.

Videos are so lame.

But today's crazy teenage complaining moment demands more than words.

 

 

 

Let's take a little YouTube tour and get to the bottom of some of life's cruelest complexities, without all that back and forth banter that rolls your eyes into their sockets.

You're trying not to drive off the side of a mountain, and I'm along for the ride. I kind of like your eyes facing forward and on the road. And, after all, it's ALL about me.

 

 

 

Life moves pretty fast sometimes.

 

 

 

 

There be chompers and long and winding roads ahead.

 

 

 

Get over it.

 

 

Miring in the pit of despair is one option.

 

 

So is facing challenges head on, without complaining, so you can finally be free of that pesky baggage riding shot gun in your passenger seat.

 

 

Just saying.

Drive on, young man, drive on…

BTW, I keep the lyrics of Puff the Magic Dragon to myself, as I help him grow up and away just a tiny bit more.

 

Sniffle.

Yeah, so much for the laughing…