From my journal about the writing of PUSHING WATER
April 6, 2007 11:27 AM
I had a dream last night. I was a power sewing machine operator again and I worked in a factory with other women. It was a big building, with not much light. Another woman and I were situated at the far end of the building with everyone else located really quite a distance from the two of us. I do not know who the other woman was, nor did we converse. But she sat at her machine and did what she was told working on stacks and stacks of large cumbersome garments. Neither one of us had very good light coming from our machines though I never the less tried to adjust my lamp and I still could not see clearly what it was that I was sewing.
I was not only working on one garment but on two garments: one for the factory and one for myself. They were not that different in style, large and boxy almost caftan like in structure and not at all made of attractive fabric. But I continued to try to complete these garments and though I cared little for what I was doing I still knew that these projects had to be completed. The interesting thing is that I concentrated most of my energy on the garment that had been intended for me. And in the middle of all this juggling back and forth, my thread tangled up and I had to be given another spool of thread.
The dream was filled with false starts and much tossing and flapping of the fabric and both garments remained in a near finished state. It was dark, unfulfilling and frustrating to be in this dream. I awoke in the morning with a terrible sense of uneasy feelings about the day and my first thoughts were of the two chapters from PUSHING WATER that I had been working on the day before. The chapters were regarding the same incident but from to different points of view. My thoughts were tangled and I felt totally frustrated about how to solve the problems that these chapters presented to me.
The chapters were not particularly well written, and there was nothing that necessitated the need for both chapters. There is however information in both chatpers that I thought was important to the story, but upon waking and remembering my dream about the two garments, I realized that I could simple remove one of the chapters and with some revision make the two chapters into one fuller and probably better chapter.
So from a dream of sewing I have solved my dilemma about revising my novel in progress. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll figure out some of the other problems that I’m having with this novel. Or, perhaps I’ll simply sleep more easily. Either way I think that I’ve won a small battle.
