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So I've told you guys before that when I stress, I have trouble sleeping and stress nightmares. I went for four or five days without sleeping well, which is a lot for me. And I had the WEIRDEST dreams.
Let me tell you a story about
So it's the end of the world as we know it (because apparently it's flooding - I live in Saskatchewan where it's always dry), and there's a guy in a giant chicken suit. Except it was missing a leg so one of the legs was all stripey with the big foot like Big Bird, and the other was just some guy's hairy leg. (As you can imagine, this is one of the weirder dreams I've had. At least top ten.)
And apparently if the world is ending, if you take some Nyquil and go to bed, it's all better in the morning, except the guy you go to bed with (the guy in the chicken soup???) gets annoyed that you drugged him.
Yeah.
So then I woke up at 6am and glared at the alarm click, and when I fell asleep again, I was in a mall food court. There was some weirdness about my mother taking the wrong order or something, then I saw this weird poster. It was a really rough painting of this kid, only his/her bones/limbs/back were drawn wiggly. Apparently wavy legs = fibromyalgia. (And various other ailments I can't remember.)
Somehow I just "knew" it was a Hunger Games poster. (Run with me here.) Not the upcoming movie, but the series/actual games. I'm not entirely sure which. Then
Off the food court, there was this long hallway and a staircase up one flight. Because I was apparently heading to Ardenes (this store we have in Canada - I love it, so this seems like me), and there was a sign saying it was that way, I went up the stairs.
Enter the freakiest hall ever. I thought for a moment this would be coming a horror movie-esqe nightmare, but no. I walked right past the broken-looking elevator (there are a lot of these in my dreams, along with bathrooms) and into a Walmart-like stockroom. Now, stockrooms in real life are generally crowded, a tiny bit claustrophobic, and a little bit scary, so in my dream, you know how creepy it was.
So I knew I had to sneak out before the two girls working saw me. (Somehow I think this related to the Katniss thing...) I managed to make it right out into the store before getting caught. I was begging the girls not to expose me as being me when... my alarm went off and I had to get ready for work.
Along with those dreams, there was one where I was babysitting and I wanted to take the kids to the movies, and I wanted to take the kids to the movies, but the parents didn't approve for some reason, and one part of the food-court dreams where I dozed off at the table. It's kinda sad when you dream about sleeping...
The moral of this story? I owe Suzanne Collins a major apology... and, erm, I was stressing out for some reason. Why? At first I couldn't it out. Then I realized:
1. I wrote a book.
2. I wrote another book.
I know, shocking, isn't it? Not like I haven't been talking about it for months. :P
But let's break it down a little:
1. I wrote a book.
a. That is almost *gulp* being done being revised.
b. And I think I've figured out what my biggest problem with it is.
c. Which means I can fix it.
d. Which means it'll be done.
e. And I could start to query with it.
f. Maybe by summer, even.
g. Which scares the ever-loving daylights out of me.
h. Because I have to write a query, and this is a very hard thing.
i. And that means people will read it.
j. People who don't love me.
k. *trigger freakout*
2. I wrote another book.
a. That people ARE READING. (You were right, Kaitlin. This is stressful. :P)
b. That people LIKE.
c. Even more than the first.
d. That I could almost figure out a query for. Or at least the beginning of one.
e. Which makes me conflicted.
f. Did I mention the revisions don't seem impossible?
g. And I hate revisions.
h. I don't completely hate this WIP, however (and I hate a lot of what I write...)
i. *trigger freakout*
So. THAT is why my eye twitched for three days and I could not sleep. But, I crashed last night from... I dunno, 11ish to almost 10am, so YAY. Still had weird dreams, but the whole twitching thing seems to have stopped for the most part. I think a lot of that had to do with writing this post yesterday afternoon when I tried (and failed) to take a nap.
How do you guys deal with this kind of stress, though? I'm totally open to suggestions right now. (As long as they don't involve going for long walks. Because it's either cold out or melting and gross. So those have to wait a while.)
Peace and cookies,
Laina
