A Writer's Anxiety Dream

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I have claimed elsewhere in my blog that I am not a writer: I write. But for the sake of this post, consider me a writer.

The other night I woke up from an anxiety dream; you all have them -- before important dates, before big meetings, when expenses need to be paid, etc. I think the most common one people have is that they miss a test, or get into a test and realize they don't know any of the answers or that they studied something else altogether.

My dream had to do with submissions I'd given recently to a Jewish Canadian annual literary journal for consideration for this year's edition. I haven't yet heard anything from the editor/publisher, but in my dream my two poems were published. This journal is released in conjunction with Toronto's Jewish Book Fair held every November and suddenly I was at the venue of the launch, and handed a book and told right there and then that my poems were in. Only problem: they got my name wrong!

When I know I will have something published, I often like to use my maiden and married name if possible; many people from my past would not know my married name but would remember that I was one of the "literary" ones at school if they saw my published piece with my maiden name as well. So I was supposed to have had all three names show up in the index. One poem had me listed only as Pearl, like I was some rock singer a la Jewel or Madonna/Esther. The other poem listed my names completely wrong. There was also some kind of bracketed disclaimer in the index with my poems, implying they were heavy-duty sad, or something like that. I was so angry because I was told that the literary journal had been edited, but I thought that if they got my names wrong, how could it have been edited. And I wondered that nobody would know it was me who wrote either poem with the altered/shortened names.

It is weird to have this dream: I do not yet know if my poems will be accepted this year, like last year and two years before that...but I'm guessing that with my anxiety dream, it means that I'm hoping they will be!