And he was trying to kill me!
Let me back up.
I had come back from a great event with a bunch of writers on Saturday night. I was feeling the warmth and glow of friendship and support. Then I went to bed.
What I had was this sort of horror movie dream. My boyfriend will attest to the fact that I hate horror movies. I won't let him watch them around me. They're scary. And I don't want to participate in any sort of re-enactment of mutilation, fear, and murder. It's just not a good vibe for me.
So imagine my horror (ha ha) at this dream:
Ryan Murphy was going around killing the entire cast of Glee. He was stabbing Kurt and strangling Rachel and bludgeoning Finn (who is already dead, so maybe it was Zombie Finn). He turns to me and I'm next! He was on a murder spree and I could feel the fear rising in me.
I kept waking up from the dream, in a cold sweat. Then I could go back to sleep and there was Ryan Murphy, ready to kill me again. I couldn't get away from him!
I woke up just thinking it was some horrible, dumb dream that was making me uncomfortable. Then I went camping with my boyfriend and I picked up his copy of The War of Art. I got to this chapter where Pressfield talks about a woman named Carol and her dream. She was a passenger on a bus where Bruce Springsteen was the bus driver. Springsteen stops the bus and gets off, leaving her to drive the bus. She didn't know how to drive the bus and she wasn't sure she could do it.
After she woke up and thought about it for a while, she realized that Springsteen represented "The Boss" and that the dream was telling her that she needed to be The Boss of her own life and drive the bus. No one should control where she was going or what direction she was headed in.
That got me thinking about this dream, featuring another pop culture figure whose work ethic and imagination I admire. I don't always agree or like what Ryan Murphy does, but I can't argue with his ability to be fearless in the way that he tells stories. I could use some more of that fearlessness, as a matter of fact. So as I'm looking at the campfire, I had some thoughts of what the dream could mean:
Maybe the dream was about killing your darlings. There's that adage that writers need to stop being precious about their work and sometimes they need to cut certain scenes, characters and plot points that they love because it would better serve the story. As writers, we feel that everything we do is wonderful and there's maybe a favorite joke or idea or scene in our script that we LOVE. But it does nothing for the story. We have to learn to let go. Ryan Murphy's darlings are these characters of Rachel, Kurt and Finn. And he just got rid of them. Maybe as I embark on this screenplay I'm writing that is very personal and nostalgic, I need to be reminded not to be too precious about it. Do what serves the story, even if it means changing what really happened.
Maybe the dream was about not being afraid to cut through the fiction and get to the heart of the matter. Ryan Murphy killing all of his fictional creations is a metaphor for not just writing what is in my imagination, but being fearless in writing what's true. This screenplay is a work of fiction, but it's also based on some real life stuff. It's easy to dance around the hard stuff that happened and make things up. Ryan Murphy the Murderer says no! Kill the lies! Kill all the lies! Murder them in the most extreme way possible and make sure they're dead! And maybe once I kill those lies, something will transcend and be on the other side waiting. Reveal the soul of what I'm writing about.
Ryan Murphy wants me dead. Maybe in the dream, he knows I'm after him. I'm Harry Potter! Okay, no time to mix metaphors or confuse fictional worlds, even though Darren Criss was in A Very Potter Musical or something like that. I tend to revere people. I think they're smarter than me or better or more imaginative, especially people who have had successful careers. But I can't do that. I can't assume that because someone is a show runner or an exec or an agent or manager that they know more than I do. I can't defer to Ryan Murphy just because he's Ryan Murphy. But Ryan Murphy also knows that I am a threat. I'm after his job. So in the dream, he wants to kill me because I am a real threat. I have what it takes. I can be a fearless, prolific, imaginative show runner (or any type of writer I chose to be). I have the power within me to do that.
In this dream, Ryan Murphy represents Resistance. All of the things I tell myself about why certain things elude me. Or that this vocation is so hard and competitive that such a small percentage of people actually do it and why should I try and maybe I should just give in to the reality that it's not going to happen. Or that if I don't become Ryan Murphy I have failed because, as it turns out, I'm not really that good anyway.
But I can't be afraid. And I can't look to that as the only mode of success. The important thing is that Ryan Murphy is successful because he does the work. He's a killer. He has made his way to the top because he has laid out everything in his wake: including his own fear and self-doubt. Including his own Resistance.
So now it's just me and the Murderous Murph, staring each other down. It's either him or me. And the resounding message here (whether this dream is about one or all of the things I mentioned) is...
Kill or be killed.
I am grateful for dreams.
I am grateful for messages that tell me things I need to know.
I am grateful for being in my body, in my productivity.
I am grateful for knowing what I need to do.
I am grateful to be a warrior, a killer.
I am grateful that this message came to me as I am about to embark on something that does scare me.
I am grateful to quiet the noise.
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