Dreams Mean Work

I've always loved the last line of By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: "Dreams mean work." Given how I'm practically drowning in work now (and for the next 12 weeks), writing a story should be the last thing on my to-do list. Writing a story one day before a deadline should be a big, screaming what-the-heck-are-you-thinking, flat-out NO. But the orange paperclip I saw this Monday was a big push for me to just go for it. Maybe I felt like I had to prove something to myself.

With the way I dream, dreams mean a lot more work, but they also mean...

• Emailing and texting friends to get first-hand information (and I got some amazing responses! THANK YOU SO MUCH for the help and inspiration!)
• Staying awake past 2 AM to write a 5-page story
• Getting a friend to critique my draft this morning (Salamat, Mia!)
  
• Almost tripping in the rocky carpark where I had to park to get a document notarized
  
• Skipping lunch to drive all the way to Kamuning (thanks for the directions, CJ!)
• Seeing the sparkling new, brightly-lit and happy Adarna House for the first time
  
• Getting stuck for more than an hour along EDSA on the way back to Ortigas (okay, I had a bag of chips to munch on...)
• Eating a late lunch alone
• Staying late in the office again to beat another deadline (and I did!)
• Having the satisfaction of saying, "I really did it!" and "I can't say I didn't try!"
• Feeling like you can still edit and re-write, over and over (so I don't want to look at the story again because I'll just see the blemishes, but alas - it's done so I can't fret. At least for now...)
• Waiting for the results to come out on or before Friday, November 16
  
• Smiling (even if I'm dead tired) because I know I just wrote another story... and I'm really happy how it oozed out of me quite easily, and how it turned out. I believe I experienced a wonderful I'm-in-my-flow moment last night/this morning.

Yes, dreams mean sooooo much work. But dreams also mean more exciting times ahead... and more paperclip sightings to keep me dreaming in the first place.