Taking a Break

On the wise advice of my husband and my writerly colleagues, I'm taking a break from writing this week, with no plans to log into my laptop until the weekend.

In the meantime, I've been doing things to re-fill my creative well and take care of me: reading (new Sookie Stackhouse novel), getting re-acquainted with exercise (ow...), and painting my nails (it builds hand/eye coordination, doncha know...).

The fact that I'm really enjoying myself tells me I was overstressed from trying too hard. I'm hoping that this will give me just the break I need to return to writing.

Just keeping my fingers crossed.

Dreams

My apologies for my absence. Last week was...well...hideous. I won't bother to go into the gory details, but suffice to say it had to do with an expensive (and defective) treadmill, a spousal meltdown, and more water in the basement.

Oy.

Fortunately, it's a new week. And I started it off with some wild dreams. Allow me to back up a moment and mention that yesterday morning I met with my BFFs and fellow writers Nancy and Carrie for some much-needed recess time. Being with them got me thinking more about my writing, and realizing how long it's been since I've committed to actual writing, as opposed to noodling.

Now...cut to last night. I dreamed that I discovered a gap behind the bathtub where the backsplash met the wall. It was strange...it was our house, yet it wasn't. Anyway, I got a flashlight to look more closely at this defect, and discovered that 1) the gap was big enough to squeeze through, and that 2) behind the wall there was another huge part of the house that we didn't know existed: another bathroom, a second kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, and a gigantic family/rec room. It was all dusty and in disrepair due to having been walled off and ignored for years, but I was very excited to find it, and couldn't wait to go back and get my husband to show him my discovery.

In most dream interpretations, the house stands for your sense of self. If that's true, then my re-discovery of the walled-off section of the house means that I'm on the brink of re-discovering part of myself that had been closed off, forgotten, and neglected...like my writing. And the fact that my dream-self was excited about it, and welcomed it, is a good thing. Perhaps this means I'm finally going to be able to throw off the shackles of my self-doubt and embrace my creative side.

As a very strong believer in the power of dreams, I can only see this as a Very Good Thing. Can't wait to see how it pans out!