Wasted effort

Last night I went to a new critique group/pot luck for the first time. It was grueling. And afterwards, I'm sitting in the smoldering wreckage with one of the other group members as she gently tries to convince me that I need to explain my terms earlier in the text so the audience has an emotional context for the heroine's big reveal, and I'm kicking myself for not realizing that was needed on my own.

And then I open my eyes and realize, "Oh. I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming a critique session that never happened, about a novel I never wrote." Which is a shame, because Lyta Alexander brought some tasty-looking chocolate truffles and pretzel rolls I would have loved to try before the assassins struck and blew up the place.