A Brief Glimpse Into My Subconscious

[Warning: There is adult content in this entry. Parents, anyone under 18, and anyone close-minded about sex should skip directly to the next journal entry.]

So, I’ve been fretting about an anthology submission of late. This is the one that those of us who took the Denise Little OCW workshop were invited to submit to. Some people have heard back, but some haven’t, and given that mine will have to be forwarded from Westminster, I’ll likely be the last to hear. I believe all rejections have already been notified, so my chances of an acceptance are good. But still, I fret. I normally send things out and forget about them until I have to follow up based on my spreadsheet information, but occasionally, like now, I fret.

This weekend I went through my submissions spreadsheet, followed up on a few subs that I could (some require me finding files that aren’t unpacked yet), and updated my list of upcoming anthologies. I found another time travel anthology, which was the theme of the DL antho. Now, I hate time travel. Really hate it. It makes my head hurt. But I forced myself to write one for the DL antho, and what came out of it was a damn good story, one I never would have written or even conceived of if I hadn’t challenged myself. (Go me!)

My first thought was that if my story is rejected from the first antho, I could send it to the second one. But I immediately erased that negative tape: my story _will_ be accepted, and I’ll challenge myself to write another one.

This morning, I dreamed.

I dreamed that not only was I going to write that new story, but I had one day to do it (and that information was told to me in Dean’s voice, big surprise). I had no ideas, but I sat down and got out of my own way and started to write.

I wrote about near-future sex therapists who decide to go back in time to figure out when men stopped understanding how to pleasure women.

As usually happens in dreams, I ended up being one of the therapists. Who were also poly. And lo and behold, one of my colleagues looked just like Larry from Styx. As he and I headed off to take a shower together (huzzah!), the colleague who looked like Ricky from Styx offered to join us, but for some inexplicable reason, I declined.

I woke up after that, rather annoyed at missing out on the best part of the dream, but convinced I had a valid story idea in there somewhere. I still think I do, but I’m not sure if it’s spec fic or erotica. (And if it’s erotica, it could easily be a novel. Like I _need_ another novel idea right now…)

<><><>

It’s all Morgana and Brian’s fault. First they found us this house. Then they gave us the flyer for the antique warehouse that opens only every few months, and left us to our own devices.

A few months ago, I didn’t even know what a Hoosier cabinet _was_, and now I _have_ one.

That was the first thing we bought. They had four, and we had it narrowed down to three, then two, and when I realised that the smaller one would fit next to the stove (we were envisioning one on the long wall in the kitchen), well, that was the beginning of the end.

The next day we went back and put down the money for a stunning Victorian “princess” dresser. We’d been waffling, but Ken’s mom and I sat on the bed Saturday night and discussed how good it would look in the room, and well, that was the beginning of the end for that piece. It really does go perfectly…

We also spent a fair amount of time waffling about nightstands. Actual nightstands are hard to find on their own; most are in sets along with headboard, footboard, dresser, etc., which we don’t need. We looked at many small tables, and pretty much fell in love with one that had Gothic carving on it, but we’d already bought two things, and the table was the priciest of all of the tables we were considering. Finally we decided to go for it. We walked over to it, and my heart sank—it had a sold sticker on it. Someone had gazumped us.

Ken’s mom looked at the sticker. “It says Mrs. Smith. _I’m_ Mrs. Smith. Happy housewarming and happy birthdays.” How cool is that?!

So now we need one of those big entranceway benches for the final wall in the bedroom. We’ll look at antique ones (we didn’t previously, because we don’t have a place in the entranceway for one), or we might make one, and a similar nightstand for my side of the bed, with Gothic carving.

Just because we hadn’t spent enough money that day, we also went to the unfinished furniture store and ordered gorgeous dark-stained bookcases for my study/library. There’s still a lot of work to do in that room: paint the sections of walls that didn’t get painted in the last go-round because there were four 250-pound filing cabinets and a badly built-in bookcase in the way, rip up the nasty turquoise carpet, fix the front of the secretary desk…and eventually either find the doors that go to the shelves on either side of the desk, or make some. I’ve always wanted to learn stained glass, after all.