So I'm typically a lucid dreamer. When I dream there are almost always at least two streams of consciousness going: the dream and my reflection on the dream. And most of my dreams are excruciatingly boring and endlessly monotonous -- typically I'm at work, I'm shopping, or I'm driving around a campground. Put the two together and sleep is pretty exhausting.
But every once in a while it gets interesting.
Albeit in a boring way.
On Saturday night I was dreaming, and I don't recall the main body of the dream, but one point there was an interjection. An older person, wise and experienced, with a voice like a genderless Statler or Waldorf. the person was on a balcony with red curtains, and sat to me, while gesturing with a pen, "Write with MOPLO!"
(Both O's are long, incidentally.)
The dream state part of me understood it as an acronym and, moreover, took it to heart as sound advice.
The part of my mind that was reflecting on the dream was so confused it woke me up so I could try to figure out what on earth MOPLO might stand for. And, in all candor, I couldn't stop thinking about it and never really got back to sleep.
So, I want to pass along this same advice all my writer friends: Write with MOPLO!
But then I want to ask all of you out there...
Um....
What's MOPLO?
The best I've been able to come up with is this:
Write with More Power / Less Obfuscation.
Sound advice, to be sure, and I'm trying to take that to heart.
Any other ideas?
.Nevets.
A misspelling of Monopoly? Could it mean you need to write a book base around the game. Murder perhaps?
ReplyDeleteMore Plot? Never a bad idea...
ReplyDeleteMind over pointless literary obfuscations? More po-udding? Haha, that's too funny ... let me know if you figure it out :-)
ReplyDeleteI am also a serious dreamer. Because I have struggled with insomnia in the past, my doctor gave me a prescription for Ambien. I almost never take it because it is so frightening being trapped in my dreams ... sort of like a crazy pharmaceutical "Nightmare on Elm Street" ;) I think there has to be some kind of connections between writers and intense dreaming ...
Masterly openings please literary organisations?
ReplyDelete@Jarmara - Oooo. I see potential in there. Sort of a Logan's Run for the 21st century.
ReplyDelete@Tim - Ugh. Considering I hate plot, you may be right.
@KLo - haha Pudding sounds pretty good right now. And I think it would be fascinating to explore the different ways writers sleep and dream. I've had the feeling of being trapped in my dreams before and it scared the living heck out of me. Literally. Not a drop of living heck left.
@Frances - That's quite elegant!
Are you sure you just didn't hear right? Perhaps he said, 'more flow!'
ReplyDelete@Clarissa - Far be it from me to challenge the hearing of my dream self, but that does seem like a pretty reasonable spin.
ReplyDelete