Don’t worry, it was a literal nightmare, not a metaphorical one. But horrifying while I was experiencing it.
I wouldn’t be a bit stressed about these books, by any chance?
Background
The local printer I chose is not primarily a book printer, also some of her equipment was wrecked last year in the latest and worst of our recent big floods, so she currently sends those jobs out to what she calls her production team. They do a beautiful job of the physical production; however they managed to print the wrong version of the memoir – the one BEFORE I had corrected the hard copy printer’s proof. This has meant a reprint, at no extra cost to me. That took the printer, who was as upset as I was, some time to negotiate. I was then asked to go through and highlight particular pages where the correct version differed from what I got. After that it seemed to take forever, and I have been getting toey because I'm eager to send out review copies, invitations to the launch, etc. I'm releasing the three books as a package, so the other two titles have had to wait until this one is finalised.
We had definite word the books would be with the printer last Friday and with me by Monday. This did not happen. Following my Tarot reading, indicating that someone was sitting on them, I phoned the printer. She contacted the production team again, and was told they had been dispatched, but only yesterday. I will get them today. Whew! (Part of me says I'll believe it when I see it.)
That's what I went to sleep with.
In the nightmare ...
The book launch was taking place at my friend Maureen’s home.
In real life this has never been the planned venue. But Maureen has always been very supportive of me, and did a lot of fund-raising to help get me to Texas in 2006 when I was a guest of the Austin International Poetry Festival – which provided my accommodation while I was there, and other perks, but not my travelling costs from Australia. I can see how the dream would have come up with this scenario, particularly as I have had to find a new venue at short notice for the launch of these books.
All was going well. The guests took refreshment, seated around long tables, while an old friend of Maureen’s and mine said lovely things about me in a launching speech. Stacks of the three books which make up my ‘trilogy’ were dotted around the room for people to purchase later. Then suddenly Maureen told me there wasn’t much time left, as the speechifier had gone on a bit long, and people were expecting the event to end shortly. I looked for a copy of the memoir to read something from that as planned. The only copy I could put my hands on was wrapped in a sheet of paper on which the head of the printer’s production team had written all the reasons why he could not completely carry out my instructions for corrections, and what he had done instead. The book itself was a mess! Some of the corrections were on pages badly pasted over the old ones. Others he hadn’t done at all. And that was the only copy I could find. I clutched it, aghast, with no idea what to do next.
Thankfully, I then woke up.
Yes, I am anxious. I had asked to see a hard copy proof of the corrected version but that request got lost somewhere. The printer assures me she has checked everything very carefully this time. I won’t be happy until they are delivered this afternoon and I can go through the reprint in detail.
(Meanwhile I am hosting the online community Poets and Storytellers United today, preparing for a post-class review of my latest Reiki II students at my home in two days' time, choosing one of my Beltane poems for the next gathering of the local Goddess circle, and drafting a launch invitation as well as a press release for potential book reviewers. Slowing down in my senior years? Not much.)
Image in the Public Domain. Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway.jpg