November is a month of darkness and dreams. Relentless storms with the hint of winter in them make the days darker, the skies greyer. The air freezes, riming the roofs and crisping the grass. Horizons are misted by rain and fog. And when the rain pauses, the wind stills, and the sun peeks above the horizon, the world is flushed with gold. The beginning of winter has a surreal quality. The contraction of the body against the cold, the contraction of the mind against the darkness makes me feel that I’m not truly present in the world. It couldn’t be a better season in which to dream.
Dreams are the space between sleep and waking. Borderlands, where we exalt in our whims or become trapped in the thorns of our fears. They are night enchantments, where we live other lives, or distorted versions of our own, a gossamer existence on top of our reality. Perhaps we leave our bodies in the night, as some cultures believed, to participate in the events of our dreams. Perhaps it’s true that there are deities who send us dreams, demons that curse us with nightmares and creatures that feed on our essence as we sleep. Or maybe dreams are simply a way to understand the world without the intrusion of our conscious mind. It’s no wonder that for thousands of years we’ve sought meaning from our dreams.
Dreams don’t give up their secrets easily. They conceal meaning behind layers of symbol and distortion, a jumble of reality and imagining. Dreams are wisps of thoughts and impressions left behind in the memory. Things often don’t make sense, or our recollection of them is so hazy when we wake that we can’t grasp the sense of them. They are fluid, merging into one another. Sometimes they are effortless, sometimes frustratingly tangled.
Daydreams don’t have the chaos or mystery of the dreams that seek us out in the night. But they are another borderland: a place of drift and retreat; a slice of enchantment conjured just outside the real world. Night dreams visit me unbidden, but I create my daydreams. I tend to daydream when I’m stationary because daydreaming requires focus. All those adults who have ever told a child to stop daydreaming in the misconception that they’re being idle, were mistaken. It takes time and effort to construct a daydream, to build a world that can be seen, heard and tasted. The line between daydreaming and visualisation is thin, lacking only intention.
My life is imprinted with thousands of dreams, remembered and forgotten. There are many ways to dream and I do it with a pen in my hand. I write my daydreams down and call them stories. What are stories, if not dreams of the imagination? When I conjure a story it’s a type of dreaming. There’s a space in the back of my head where the story unfolds like a reel of film. Ephemeral and sometimes disjointed. Like a foggy day or the blur of rain, it can be difficult to shape or grasp the sense of it. But story-making is like lucid dreaming. I can step inside the story and midwife it into being.
Wonderfully written as ever. When I earned half a living writing music one of the most stultifying things was people who thought I was “doing nothing”. It was laziness!
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Thanks Bruce, exactly, they don’t realise what masterpieces we’re composing when we’re sitting doing nothing!
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Dear Andrea, this is beautiful. The photos were perfect for the post. I very much related to and enjoyed your lyrical words about dreaming. Huge hugs.
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Thanks Teagan, I hope you have pleasant dreams 🙂
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Wow, this is so powerful, Andrea. Love this: “Dreams . . . Borderlands, where we exalt in our whims or become trapped in the thorns of our fears. They are night enchantments, where we live other lives, or distorted versions of our own, a gossamer existence on top of our reality.”
And this: “There’s a space in the back of my head where the story unfolds like a reel of film. Ephemeral and sometimes disjointed. Like a foggy day or the blur of rain, it can be difficult to shape or grasp the sense of it. But story-making is like lucid dreaming. I can step inside the story and midwife it into being.”
It’s so true that when I’m writing, the story is foggy, unshaped and out of sequence at first, but somehow it eventually unfolds clearer and linear.
This post is a keeper.
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Thanks so much Lori, I guess that’s the fun of dreaming those stories into being – seeing them becoming clearer after those first foggy moments 🙂
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I agree with Teagan – the photos are dreamy just like your post. Daydreaming takes patience, too, doesn’t it? I think that’s what can make writing hard sometimes – being patient with that part of our mind that is working and tuning into it without the distractions of reality.
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Thanks Susanne, yes, patience too – a good story needs a lot of pondering!
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What a wonderful way to see writing, Andrea.
And I totally agree about the importance of day dreaming, for all age groups.
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Thanks Jean, yes, daydreaming should definitely have a higher priority 🙂
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What a wonderful way to view this time of year. A time when it’s easy to not be so present. My weather is much like yours, and my least favorite days are ones when the cloud cover is so thick, I need to use headlights during all times of day. Today, the clouds are all the way down to the treetops. Dark.
Beautiful piece!
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It’s easy for the dark to get on top of you, when even when my house is fully lit the lights don’t seem to make much impact, but curling up and dreaming is a good way to accept it 🙂
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Lovely- and beautiful pictures!🌺
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Many thanks 🙂
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I adored this post, Andrea. It was so dreamily written and photographed. I have to agree with you, daydreams are definitely stories just waiting to be written down!
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Thanks Dale 🙂
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I love your writing very much Andrea and your misty/foggy photos are beautiful.
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Thanks Clare, much appreciated.
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Beautiful post, with gorgeous photos! 😍. Thank you! 🌸🙏🏻🌸
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Thank you Trini 🙂
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This is wonderful, Andrea. It’s given me a whole new view on dreaming xxxx
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Many thanks Dianne.
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Lovely, Andrea. And you’ve confirmed to me that other people see their stories playing out like film reels. When I mentioned this at a recent writing workshop the tutor was astonished. I found her reaction bizarre but then only one other person there agreed with me and that was only half heartedly.
Your pictures really do capture the mood of your writing. Great stuff.
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Thanks Jenny. That’s always the way they come to me – and I don’t do much character building because they appear fully formed 🙂
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Such provocative words and images–I’ll need some time pondering all this. I remember very little of what I dream at night but love the time I spend inside my head, daydreaming . . .
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Thanks Kerry, I remember fewer than I’d like, but I still remember some from years ago!
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Again Andrea, your gorgeous narrative and photos evoke a creative, mysterious mood for this dank season of daydreams.I find this time of year is when my creativity flows, a time for the mind to wander and then create. I spent too much time daydreaming as a child…so I was told 😉 Your first photo especially is stunning, I can’t stop looking at it. Lovely post Andrea, thank you…xxx
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Thanks Sherri, all that daydreaming obviously did you good as it led to the creative person you are now 🙂
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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“I write my daydreams down and call them stories.” Exquisite.
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Thank you.
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I’m a big daydreamer–always have been. Over the years I have learned to turn those daydreams into creative moments. I wish I could remember my night dreams–I bet there would be more creative opportunity there. Beautiful post.
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I’ve had some great night dreams but never yet something I’ve turned into a story – it would be great to have one of those dreams that led to a masterpiece 🙂
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An most excellent post! Your photos are a profound reflection of your words. Where were these photos taken?
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Thank you! The photos were taken in the north east of England, mainly near the coast.
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Your beautiful writing and dream-like pictures suit each other. I have long thought of my dreams as expressions of feelings that I need to process. Months after my divorce from my first husband I began to realize in my dreams that forgiveness was taking place, both for myself and for him. When I look out my window and am drawn into a poem I am awake but caught up in my musing world. Good other-worldly stuff. Thanks for your lovely piece. ❤
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Thanks Ina, I’m glad you’ve found a good way of using your dreams – both when you’re asleep and awake 🙂
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I love this, Andrea, and you’ve captured it perfectly for this season when Nature goes dormant and things slow down. I particularly love the photos and what you said about dreams, “They are night enchantments, where we live other lives . . .”.
I’ve had a variety of dreams that have changed over the years. In times past, I’ve had visions I didn’t quite know what they meant, some traveling dreams and others anxious dreams where I was desperately trying to finish something. But lately, they’re mostly where I’m working with people on different projects. I guess dreams are there to help us process life and keep us connected with creativity and the worlds beyond.
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Hello Pat, it’s lovely to see you, I think my dreams have evolved too over time, I often find these days that it seems I dream the same dream all night long!
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Same here, Andrea. I wonder sometimes what it means and trying to accomplish. 🙂
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Andrea, your photographs are just spectacular. I want to be transported there and slip in to them. And as a daydreamer (well, hey, look at my blog name LOL) all my life,and someone introspective of my night dreams, this post really resonated with me. Lovely.
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Thanks Jeanne. ‘Dreamers’ sometimes get a bad name, for being unrealistic and not achieving anything, but I think the opposite is true 🙂
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Mmmm, this was absolutely lovely, Andrea. It is clear from your ability to write with such fluidity and present apt photos that you have a rich imagination and true skill. Thanks so much for guiding us down this path of peace. I know I will dream well tonight.
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Thank you Jet, I hope your dreams are fruitful and enjoyable!
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Gorgeous captures, Andrea. I am sure there are mysteries hidden in each of them.
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Thanks for your visit and your comment 🙂
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Beautiful post, Andrea. And the photographs are so hauntingly lovely.
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Thank you Sylvia.
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Magnificently said, Andrea! Walking along winter’s edge, we’re not present and hyper-present, everything immediate and amplified even while the mist obscures and distances. I find myself so anxious for the moment when you can almost hear the rain become snow. And I love what you say about “the line between daydreaming and visualisation is thin, lacking only intention”; I really do feel like I’m writing all day long, even though I may not be setting down the words.
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Thanks Sunshine – I love that image ‘walking along winter’s edge’. Writing things down is maybe the smallest part of writing 🙂
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what a profound post. you definitely find your way by moonlight and see the dawn before most of us. The Australian aborigines believed our souls were traveling in our dreams and I tend to think so. I often end up in the most unusual places! But yes, it does require effort to dream by day in so many ways, because creativity often follows. Thanks for this post Andrea in this dark and sometimes depressing time of year. I mentioned you in my post. Your images are wonderful and mysterious!
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Ah, thank you Cybele, your photos are so often dream-like so I think you’re with me on that moonlit path! Thanks so much for the mention.
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you are most welcome and yes maybe one day we will meet up on one of those moonlight excursions!
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🙂
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Wow your connection wit dreams and November was quite the read, way to be unique sawgrass. We would love your feedback on a few of our Short stories at Gastradamus. So please check out Miss Scarlet and Blue Jasmine. It would be up your alley. Your feedback would be incredible
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Thank you for your visit and your comment.
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Andrea – Once again, I am pleased to be drawn into your descriptions of the natural world, and I happen to be passionate about dreams and dreaming. I have kept dream journals since high school, and the dreams reinforce my love of the symbolism that I find in literature. Fascinated with symbols (which both conceal and reveal), I love the journey of solving riddles that occur in dreams. Lately, I pray each night for dreams and their wonderful revelations. Thank you for paying attention to the nuances of the weather and the spirit!
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Thanks Carla, you sound as though you’re very in tune with your dreams and what they have to teach you 🙂
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I like stepping inside dream-like states as I write.. and you have encouraged me to do so on this dark November day, Andrea 😉 The fog in some of those photos you’ve shared is incredible – it always has such an eerie vibe when I’m out on a day that’s foggy!
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Thanks Christy, I love fog too, it makes the world anew 🙂
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“The contraction of the body against the cold, the contraction of the mind against the darkness makes me feel that I’m not truly present in the world.” – Just love this, Andrea.
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Lovely to see you Laine, thank you.
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Only posting now and then but stopped by to read your lovely blog, Andrea.
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Appreciate your visit 🙂
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Beautifully considered, Andrea.
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Thank you Cynthia.
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A wonderful post and superb images .. I could have kept on reading. Day dreams become stories .. Beautiful ..
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Thanks Julie, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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Just beautiful. I’ve been thinking about dreams lately because of something my cousin Jeane (yup, that one) wrote to me about her dreams. Those repetitive ones. Are the people who remember their dreams the ones who spend more time “daydreaming”?
That first photograph just grabbed me–and won’t let go.
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Thanks Luanne, I wonder if there’s a link between daydreaming and remembering dreams – I often don’t remember them, but there are some I remember from years ago and some that, when I dream them, I think, oh yes, I’ve been here before…
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Me too. I still vividly remember a dream I had when I was a little kid (younger than 8, maybe 7). I even wrote it up. I ought to share it sometime on my blog–maybe somebody can interpret it!
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Luanne and Andrea – I have wondered about that too. Have heard that it gets easier to recall dreams if one is paying attention, taking them seriously, and evaluating/analyzing them. I love the mystery involved. For example, I have had dreams in which things occurred, and then those things occurred in reality — about three years later. Also, I have long periods of time in which I do not dream, and I find that troubling. What are your thoughts about nightmares?
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I think nightmares are probably the result of negative feelings in your waking life, unless they’re a direct result of being unsettled by something, such as when I watched the Hammer film ‘Blood on Satan’s Claw’ when I was a child! But I used to have a very abstract re-occurring nightmare as a child – I would see two lines and I knew that I was running along them and being chased. When the lines ran out and I saw a mish-mash of browny colours I knew I’d been caught and would wake up screaming. I have no idea what it was about or what it was connected with, but I had it many times. Fortunately, I rarely have nightmares these days. Another thought – do you see yourself in dreams or do you see the dream as though you’re in it and looking out – I think that in many of my dreams I watch myself…
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I have both kinds of dreams, Andrea, both being an observor and a participant, and sometimes they are blended together. Being interested in dream interpretation, I have listened to the information by John Paul Jackson (Streams International Ministries; he passed away not too long ago, but his ministry continues as his staff has carried on) and Doug Addison (dougaddison.com). You might find them interesting! Of course, ultimately, we have individual dream symbols, but occasionally, something so strange will occur in a dream that I consult outside sources to help with interpretation. I am also at peace with not being able to interpret, though I do find it pleasing to understand a dream more than not understand one. I do not watch horror films, as I know that would result in unwanted imagery and nightmares. For me, tensions can create nightmares. Thank you for your thoughts and ideas!
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Similarly and a bit scarily, I have written things and then they occurred.
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Wow, that IS unusual! Hey, write something wonderful about me and let’s see if it comes true! 🙂
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Yes, I could do with an agent Luanne….
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I’m sorry, Carla; I can’t engage with this horrible thing. I think it’s something bad, and so I don’t want to get lured into it. Plus, it does make me look like a narcissist that I think my writing can alter what happens ;)!
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Understood. I was just kidding anyway. 🙂
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Beyond the gorgeous writing here, Andrea, is the idea of the importance of dreams. It’s a funny thing, but I’ve been thinking about how much dreams guide my characters. In fact, the story I’ve been working on today (just before I read your post, actually) has the character listening to imagined music and real ‘music’ of clothes thumping in the drier and she goes to sleep. As a writer, I also try to lucid dream and take lots of inspiration from the weirdities I do dream up; maybe that’s cheating, but I’ll take those imaginings and do what I can with them to make sense of the world.
Finally, simply put, I love your writing (and the photos, too). So very ambient and elemental; I can live inside your words!
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Thanks Leigh, I would love to be able to get ideas for stories from my dreams, but that doesn’t often happen – they’re usually too confused!
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Yes, for sure. But since I write so much ‘weird’ stuff, I suppose it’s a benefit to me. And, I just read this think-piece about magical realism that made a good case for there not being a linear timeline in one’s (fiction) stories. Certainly people in the canon didn’t conform to rigid timelines in fiction: Faulkner, Garcia-Marquez, Vonnegut, Leslie Marmon Silko, et al, come to mind.
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Here’s to plenty more weird dreams 🙂
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dreamy images… the click with the Canada geese is lovely! and the others too… November certainly has her own charm.
my favourite line here – “I write my daydreams down and call them stories.”
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Thanks Kris, it does have many charms 🙂
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A wonderful post, Andrea. 🙂
You have connected so many things so easily into one post. I loved the pictures as well as they encouraged the dreamy look of the post.
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Thanks Norma, much appreciated.
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Such a beautiful fog in your pictures, Andrea. It mutes colours and sounds, and invites dreams and mysteries. After admiring the photographs I read your post, and enjoyed every word. Sometimes dreams are more substantial than happenings in a real life.
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Thank you Inese, yes, dreams do have a way of staying with you sometimes.
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Fabulous photos!
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Thanks Francesca 🙂
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Beautiful photography! I didn’t realize how fog can be so calming in photos.
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Thanks for your visit and your comment.
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Beautiful writing, Andrea, and the photos are excellent! Your blog is a both a restful and mentally stimulating visit.
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Thanks Lavinia, I’m glad you enjoyed your visit.
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Such a moody and dreamy picture. A perfect match for your inspired post.
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Thanks Renee.
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YES! Poetic fictional midwifery. You and I think alike, writing soul-sister. Gorgeous imagery with words and photos.
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I’m happy to be your writing soul-sister Pam 🙂
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😘
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The leaving of your body to participate in dreams, reminds me of Susanna Clarke’s novel, “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell”, in which the character Emma Wintertowne takes nightly excursions into the Land of Fairy.
About daydreams — Having spent the first three decades of my life daydreaming, one day I made a conscious decision that none of these daydreams should be allowed to float away into the ether, but instead captured by my pen and committed to paper. So yes, story-writing is a taming and structuring of daydreams.
I’m loving the frosty weather this week, now it’s come down south, too. You’ve probably already had many more weeks of it up your way.
Wishing you plenty of happy dreaming, Andrea 🙂
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I’m glad to know that none of those daydreams were wasted – they must have been some very quirky daydreams 🙂 We’ve only just had the frost too, it’s been a very mild autumn – and a rainy November, it’s good to have proper winter frost.
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Yes, some of them were very quirky and not to be shared with a psychoanalyst! Of course, many of my daydreams were very tongue-in-cheek and related to having a rather strange sense of humour.
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I’ve been thinking recently about how incredibly good your writing is and how privileged I feel to read it for free. I was also thinking how pleased I will be to walk into a bookshop one day and ask for your book and pay money for it. Your writing seems to be getting better and better or maybe I should say deeper and deeper. Thank you. You deserve a large readership.
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Thanks so much Vicky, that’s a lovely compliment! I hope you’ll be able to pay money for a book of mine one day too 🙂 Speaking of which, I’ve been collecting your crime novels to read in the last few weeks, I have one missing and then I’m going to read the series.
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Thank you! I just had a weird thing happen which was that Vena Cork a crime writer I know read the first one Bloodless Shadow and discovered that the building Sam (my protagonist) has her office in was where her son had his studio. It’s a small small world sometimes!
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Love the misty pics! 🙂
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Thanks Kev.
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Your daydreams present us with great beauty. And I agree, we don’t give enough time for daydreaming, and silence. Of stories, it occurs to me that one of our greatest stories, the Christmas story, featured dreams of great importance. 🙂
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Thanks Gallivanta, dreams have so many layers of magic 🙂
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Such a perceptive way to filter light and convey something as immaterial as the air!…
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Thanks Luiza.
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I love your writing on dreaming. And especially like the ending. “I can step inside the story and midwife it into being.”
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Thank you.
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