I think I’ve mentioned in this space before (perhaps repeatedly) that I tend to have some very weird dreams. This problem has intensified somewhat with pregnancy, possibly due to the fact that I never seem to sleep for longer than 45 minutes to an hour at a time, although thankfully the dreams have mellowed a little and I haven’t had a “trapped in an elevator” nightmare in quite a while.
Right before I woke up this morning, I was dreaming about being in a business meeting with all the members of a company that primarily made and sold craft beer. The company owner was my boss from my university summer job, and one of the other participants was someone I haven’t seen or thought about since high school (plus her boyfriend), with the rest being generic placeholder people, with the exception of an older man who we found out later in the meeting was writing a memoir about his time travelling around the United States in a covered wagon during the frontier days. (Which makes absolutely no sense, but whatever.)
He admitted to the group that he was having trouble coming up with a suitable title for his memoir. I flipped through the pages of his manuscript and ultimately suggested “FULL FRONTIER: The True Story Of One Man’s Journey Across North America”. And everyone at the table unanimously agreed that it was a TERRIBLE title for a book, in spite of the fact that I read the title with an appropriately dramatic tone, paused in all the right spots, and punctuated the air with a gesture involving my index and middle fingers when I read the “colon” part.
That was several hours ago, and I still think it was a great title. I, for one, would HAPPILY read a book with that title. None of the people manufactured by my subconscious have ANY IDEA what they are talking about.
There is an episode of The Simpsons where Homer has a dream that he invents something amazing, but in the dream no one will get out of his way to see what that item is.
Just thought I’d throw that in there.
Plus, that is a wonderful title about an old man who time travels in frontier America and then decides to come home to randomly attend meetings at a business that makes and sells craft beer.
p.s. I see we’ve finally cracked the mystery about ‘that novel you’ve been working on.’
I agree. Your subconscious should fire those losers. They wouldn’t know an awesome book title if it bit them in the frontier.
Lindsay — ha! That Simpsons episode sounds funny. As for the novel I’ve been working on, perhaps I will have to give some thought to actually writing that story. I didn’t technically come up with the idea for this one (the old man did) but I suppose it’s not REALLY plagiarizing if it’s just stealing intellectual property from a figment of your own imagination.