Saying no to a ghost in dreamland
On dreams, protecting creative energy, and narrative immediacy
I’ve been dreaming again—having vivid dreams that leave me with scraps or clues that will dissipate if I don’t write them down quickly. To be taught things in my sleep feels (perhaps paradoxically) like part of me is waking back up after months of exhaustion and overwhelm crowded it out. Through their sparse and unexpected plot lines, these dreams often reveal the fundamental architecture of a relationship or situation. This is the kind of clarity I seek through writing, but it can also feel like a mandate to write--like getting nudged with spontaneous desire to understand what’s really going on. It can also feel like getting hints and slivers of insight, these waxing crescents whose missing pieces generate the momentum of curiosity.
A week and a half ago I had a dream specifically about writing. It was kind of a sexy dream with a sci-fi mystery plot in which a Brad Pitt type—a movie star—had chosen me to be his wife, my hairy legs and all. But first, there was something sinister afoot out there—chemical contamination or an infection that turned people into living ghosts. We went to check it out, bolting to the high school whose fluorescent-lit gymnasium was being used by scientists and law enforcement officers to contain these ghosts. We pretended to be cops, blending in by making fake radio calls as we ran through the halls: “Roger that!”
When we found them, the ghosts were moping about the gymnasium, which had been furnished like an office. They paced slowly about the cubicles with ridiculous grimaces, frowning with exaggerated dissatisfaction. Their sadness wasn’t pure performance, but it was important to uphold boundaries around their emotions nonetheless.
One of the ghosts tried to get me to take on some unfinished business. That’s what the ghosts were all trying to do—get the living to wrap up the quests they hadn’t been able to complete, though they were still partially alive (albeit transluscent and ineffectual). I pondered the ghost’s project, looking over at my movie star boyfriend.
“Is there anything you’re trying to do in your lifetime?” he asked me, raising his eyebrows.
“Yeah, actually—I’m trying to write a book,” I said.
“Well, I wouldn’t recommend it, then,” he said, about taking on that ghost’s request.
Yes, I am trying to write a book! I thought, amazed at the simplicity of claiming my own pursuits at the exclusion of anyone else’s. That was it. Writing the book was doable, but picking up others’ burdens, however innocuous and bland, would drain my ability to complete it: there was only energy and time to do so much.
Sometimes I need that level of drama to understand boundaries, and I’ve been grateful for the ways that dream spelled them out for me. It felt like a permission slip to say no to things that aren’t really mine to take on, because there is something more meaningful I need to protect: the book I want to write in real life. And most often those burdens that get in its way are things I impose on myself or volunteer to take on.
I’ve been thinking about what those burdens are, especially within my business and my relationship with my day job: the energy I pour into admin, digital chores, and performing different personas depending on the context, creating “content.” It’s exhausting to do things that don’t feel meaningful, even if they are necessary. It’s also (of course) super exhausting to get sucked into doing things that aren’t actually necessary or meaningful.
Sometimes I avoid evaluating whether something is necessary because it stings to find out, after pouring countless hours into it, that it wasn’t really (or it wasn’t necessary to do it in the way I did). There have been a lot of things like that, especially things that seem like what I’m supposed to do (as a writer, as a creative business owner, etc). But lately it’s felt crucial to do some harsh evaluation, especially since I started working full time while juggling chronic health issues. I don’t have endless energy, and I can see how easily the sliver of creative momentum could get buried within less meaningful fixations or obligations.
A few days ago I got a beautiful letter from my friend Lucien in which he described his day: a trip on public transportation downtown, sitting in a cafe trying to get something done, and various stops along the way. There was something so free and intimate in those quotidian descriptions of everyday life, which I always love reading but don’t always allow myself to share. My writing wants to be kneaded. Sometimes there is pleasure in this shaping and grooming process, but sometimes it feels like holding myself back, establishing expectations for how polished a piece should be. These expectations can function like a fence or a horizon between the present and a project’s completion, which looks like it’s on the other side (of what, I don’t know).
After I read Lucien’s letter, I wanted to invite more quotidian immediacy into my writing—from letters to the book that asserted itself in that sci-fi dream—not just because immediacy relieves pressure but also because it feels more honest. Daily life is filled with unfinished questions and relatable anxieties, along with fully-formed details that reveal something or add texture to the ellipses of those questions and anxieties.
I feel like that narrative immediacy can teach me something about the book I am trying to finish in this lifetime, and help me let go of those transluscent burdens I’ve carried forward—to be an expert, to market myself. It’s not that I want to stop laboriously kneading and shaping all of my writing, but I want to permit more lightness and immediacy in as many spots as I can, both inside that manuscript and in the writing I do alongside it (like these letters). I want to write more about every day life.
What felt clear in the dream was that being committed to my writing may be less about what my life looks like on the surface and more about the quality of my energy. It’s also about learning how to not drain that energy and learning I have agency around where I bring the best of it.
There’s something ordinary about this quality of energy and attention, where being curious about daily life (and engaging with it creatively) doesn’t sap my capacity for more deliberately constructed work. That attention is something I can cultivate and I can stay in conversation with even while living an ordinary life whose elements aren’t entirely in my control. (There’s something here about the difference between time and energy.) But still, there’s little room to get emotionally invested in things that aren’t actually fulfilling without derailing its momentum.
Performing a certain kind of narrative certainty, which can also feel like trying to close all the loops in my work, is an example of something that drains more than fulfills. I’ve been interrogating the expectations have I placed on myself regarding what kind of narrator I’m supposed to be. I’ve sometimes mistaken fulfilling those expectations for the deeper, more meaningful generosity I want to extend through my work. And that’s a place where saying no feels like kindness, like embracing possibility.
It also feels gentle, more of a re-routing of emotional investment than a drastic overhaul of my lifestyle. I like the feeling that something that subtle—like a boundary around emotional investment in a certain kind of obligation or deciding to stop performing a persona—can facilitate the work I am most intimately invested in, the work I most hope to complete in this lifetime.
Yours,
Siloh
Culture list
A short list of things I’ve recently read, watched, or listened to that have nourished my thinking, imagination, or both!
I loved Samuel Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue for so many reasons: its discussions of urban space; its investigation of the relationship between material conditions and social connection; its incredible character sketches and sentence-work; how the two long essays its comprised of are beautiful and engaging and experimental in entirely different (and reciprocal) ways.
V sent me this podcast interview with Lance Olsen along with a note about its relevance to Writing in Unknown Shapes (a course I teach). I’m 75% through the 2 hours and am in complete agreement with V. I’ve enjoyed Olsen’s lucid descriptions of narrative shape and the many possibilities of literary form. (Thank you, V!)
Something that Rachael Stephen said in one of her newsletters about “home as an organism” got me thinking about my own space differently, and it also inspired me to re-visit Marie Kondo. Sick with a cold and lying on the couch the other day, I watched an episode of Kondo’s show on Netflix. Two things about this: one is that I am so intrigued by Kondo’s approach to objects on a personal level and am pumped to go full out tidy. Another is that I find it fascinating to consider what her approach resolves or speaks to on a cultural level. An earlier draft of one of the essays in my book/manuscript discusses Kondo, and it’s going to be interesting to re-visit that after this more recent intersection with “the life-changing magic of tidying up,” which is perhaps a less ironic or cynical encounter.
Another TV show I watched while staying home from work with a cold—Inventing Anna. It really is such a corny show with majorly overdone threads. I watched 4 or 5 episodes earlier this fall and couldn’t handle it, but I’ve had a hunch that there’s something in its narrative about wealth, identity, and artifice to work with. I have one more episode to go. It’s funny for a TV show to feel so relevant to a writing project and so not compelling to actually watch, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it. ;)
I’m trying to keep up some reading momentum I’ve recently managed to generate by steering clear of things that are too dense or dry to stick with. I loved reading George Saunders’ dark, hilarious debut short story collection Civilwarland in Bad Decline, and found solace in his author’s note at the end, which described his writing the book whilst working a mediocre office job. (This process spanned years…) Now I’m reading The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald, which has a quality of narrative immediacy and is also so crafted—maybe just the intersection I tried to describe in the letter above.
Invitations & updates
Practice Space drop-in writing sessions are on hiatus through January and early February. I’m taking a break to rest, re-establish my own creative practice after moving, and settle into my new space, but I look forward to writing with you again soon!
Writing in Unknown Shapes is also closed for enrollment but will be re-opening in spring 2023.
Experimental Practice podcast
I started a podcast called Experimental Practice! I am so proud of the first episode—a conversation with Miranda Mellis about literary form and the relationship between Miranda’s writing practice, politics, and Buddhism. We also explore the tricky work of staying connected to one’s values in and through writing, and how creative practice can provide a kind of refuge.
You can find the episode on Apple Podcasts, Pocketcasts, Spotify, and other streaming platforms, or on my website (which includes a transcript).
Episodes will be thoughtfully released on an occasional basis. Join me as we explore cross-genre and interdisciplinary work, writing craft, the relationship between care and creativity, and sustaining creative practice outside of literary and academic institutions. Do you have any ideas for episodes, or things you want to learn more about? Let me know!