Busy Week / Bear Dream

Lots of manuscripts to critique and things have been somewhat busy on the family end here, so I haven't blogged much in the last week.  

I was kind of in a bad place the other day writing wise.  A story got rejected.  Very likely because the market was swamped and the story wasn't what they were looking for.  Yes, I know I'm not the editor, but I thought the story had a chance of selling (or at least garnering a "it was _this_ close" rejection.  But instead it got a form rejection.  

Form rejections are the worst.  I know I should shrug them off.  But I went back and forth fretting with the "I'm just too stupid to be writing" and "Did gay protagonist kissing his boyfriend at the end have anything to do with it?"  

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I had the Bear Dream last night.  In the Bear Dream, I'm usually going onto the north end of the hill where I grew up.  In real life, there's a gravel road and lots of forest... or at least, last I checked several decades ago--it may be more developed by now.  Usually, there's a bear of some sort.  One Bear Dream many years ago, I was shoving Fiestawear plates into snowbanks and the Bear was a Polar Bear.

In this dream, I was travelling by rowboat (or maybe a small sail boat) to a small, rocky island.  It was the middle of the day, and the sun was out.  I think I had a candle or a lamp or something... possibly a glowing quartz crystal.  I got out of the boat and onto the gravelly beach.  The island was mostly bassalt cliffs with many narrow channels.  I knew that somewhere on the island was a Gaurdian Bear, and I needed to be cautious.  As I walked up a slope between two canyon walls, there were lots of lateral shelves in the rocky cliffs.  People had left memorials--silver plates, candels, lamps--within the shelves.  

I think I placed the light I was carying onto the shelf.  There was a break of some kind, and the smallish boat I'd come in had turned into a three-masted ship... and the dream went onto other things.

When I woke up, I couldn't help but notice the similarietesbetween the rocky shelves and the snow banks.  I'm guessing this dream has something to do with personal or family history... or "shelving" things not actively needed.  I'm not sure why the Bear is the guardian, though.

...and now, the Day Jobbe.