A Writer’s Mind is a Strange, Strange Place

Last night I dreamed I was at a science fiction convention, and was trying (as one does) to juggle prepping for my final panel of the con, packing up and checking out before the hotel deadline, and finding my co-author to make certain that he had all of his packing done so that I didn’t have to do it for him in a tearing hurry and risk losing something crucial.

Which would have made for a simple, if boring, dream, except for the point where I suddenly discovered that I had left all my clothes someplace else — as is usually the case with such dreams, my mind didn’t supply a further explanation, just bam! naked — and had to make my way back to my hotel room on the eleventh floor, and presumably to some new clothes, with nothing to preserve my modesty but a large crockpot which I was carrying in front of me like a shield.

No, my mind didn’t supply an explanation for the crockpot, either.

And did I mention the elevator was being wonky? It kept dropping me off at every floor but #11, no matter what button I pushed, including the floor which was full of actors and musicians rehearsing a musical based on the life of Theodore Roosevelt.

And while it may or may not say something about my subconscious, it definitely says something about my sense of priorities that during the whole dream, my main worry wasn’t the lack of clothes or the looming check-out time, but whether or not I had prepped adequately for that final panel.