Whew- Just a dream

Last night I had some very active dreams. The first was about some rabbits being left in a cage. They needed to be rescued… But that has nothing to do with writing.

I have an image of a soft train- the size kids can ride in. Somehow this train is padded, maybe with fabric, maybe with straw. I am not even sure it’s a train- it might just be a bunch of flat, toy wagons tied together. The first one that rolls by is fairly clean and off-white. In my mind, I say that it is a draft. Progressively each section or wagon has more stuff on it and looks a little messier- I keep saying to myself that these are subsequent drafts. But they have straw sticking everywhere, mud and blood, piles of trash… The last wagon is an absolute disaster. To prove it, it has a Red Cross flag sticking out of it. More blood, bones even, trash… I woke up as it was approaching me. What does it mean?

A little anxiety being worked out? Perhaps.

The dream works as a metaphor for the writing process as I try so hard to clean out trash from each draft. But I definitely want to make the train go the other way from disaster to clean. And certainly, often, my first drafts are disasters. Still, a dream is a dream and I don’t want to over think it.

Fortunately, the rabbits were rescued as were the sheep, goats and dogs.