Writing Exercises

I attend a weekly writing group. I thought it was a great coincidence one week when I arrived for class and the prompt on the blackboard was, "What did you dream last night?" I wrote most of "Go North For Freedom" that day.

There were other prompts too: first was to write a dream dictionary for five words yelled out randomly by class members. Here's what I came up with:

Dirty Dishes - if you dream of dirty dishes in your home, you are stressed and overextended. If you dream of dirty dishes at someone else's home, that person is not trustworthy. If you dream of cleaning or clean dishes, you are prepared for new opportunities. If you dream of broken dishes, you are about to lose money.

Newspaper - if you dream of carrying a newspaper, it denotes that you can trust your associates. If you dream of reading a newspaper, you should consider going back to school.

Statue - if you dream of a large statue, you are about to encounter a powerful person. If you dream of a small statue or figurine, it refers to someone in your circle of friends and family. If the figurine is an animal, it denotes a child; if a goddess, your wife or mother; if a god or bust of a revered man, your husband or father. If the statue is broken, your relationship with that person will undergo changes.

Fish - if you dream of fishing, you are seeking answers in life. If you are eating fish, you are growing into the wisdom of age and experience. If the fish is threatening, such as a shark or piranha, you are learning to protect yourself spiritually and mentally. If the fish are in a tank, you are risk-averse.

Monkey - if you dream of a circus monkey, you are feeling unchallenged and perhaps humiliated at your job. If you dream of a monkey in the wild, you are being given an opportunity to be true to your nature.

Next, the class leader put a list of book titles on the board, all with the word "dream" in the title. The exercise was to write something about what I supposed the books were about. And for the most part, the titles were general and nondescript enough for the exercise to work.

I Still Dream About You features Fabio with black hair, clutching a swooning beauty in a torn dress, drowning in a sea of lace and blonde.

The Mind At Night is a work of nonfiction where three theses are discussed for 600 pages, the fascination of each wearing away steadily, the footnotes a rockslide of shale on a sandy seabed.

The Dream Doctor is a novelization of a British SF show wherein a dashing man in a bowtie rescues a plucky but bewildered English girl from a villain with the face of a pig.

Fever Dream is an earnest, dramatic novel following a married couple through the dissolution of their relationship. There's a picture of a tree on the cover. I suppose someone might read it...

The Lake of Dreams is a novel for young people, where brothers fight and a girl has an awkward time with a bathing suit.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is too famous. Everyone loves it and there are a bunch of internet memes based on it. LOL.