Day Dreams
I was a day-dream kinda kid. I had all sorts of imaginary
creatures and places in my head when I was young. My brother and I used to tell
each other stories as we went on long trips – the beginning of my writing.
Growing up I held on to dreams, the day kind, ballet dancer,
concert pianist, famous writer, world traveler, well-known speaker, great
educator. These dreams were wishes, not goals to work toward, and I only
thought about them and never did anything to find them.
And I wasted a lot of time.
Night Dreams
I always believed the dreaming at night was my braining
organizing the file drawers in my head. I used to talk about the dreams I had,
always in color, rarely scary. Then I wrote about the dreams I had, the tunnel
from my closet to the road a mile away, the days I flew like a bird, the animals
I talked to.
As an adult I began writing down my dreams as a way to
create stories. I stopped for a while but realized the practice also helped me
in other ways.
Some dreams repeated, like the huge house with no furniture
and beige walls and stairs to every room. Or the house with lots of bedrooms
filled with beds on the floor with just enough room to walk around. Or the ones
about me saving members of my family from some terrible fate even though they
didn’t think there was anything to worry about. Or the ones about my husband
and me and how we could never find a space to be alone. Or the ones about me
trying to find a bathroom with a door I could close.
Maybe I’ve revealed too much …
Then there was the dream that gave me an entire short story
in one night. It was about a young lady, married with two children, who went
west with her husband to a run-down ranch with a house that needed tons of
repair. I went through a series of sleeping and waking, writing down the parts
of the story as they happened, then shutting off the light and going back to
sleep. My husband thankfully slept through the whole thing.
I practiced writing my dreams down in the morning since I
had read it was a good thing to do. Then I stopped, thinking I was focusing too
much on them. But I started up again as a way of capturing the dream and
understanding the possible reason for having it, a way to control it, to hold
it and analyze it and make it mine. I have since found the practice calming and
empowering.
The Great Writer Mystery
This brings me to the mysterious phenomenon of how several
writers can get the same idea for a story all at the same time.
I used to think the universe sent out ideas to minds that
were willing to accept them. This created tremendous pressure to get the story
written before someone else did.
Then I realized writer brains work in similar ways, taking
things and putting them together in interesting, unique ways, soaking up
information and creating something new. Given current events, why wouldn’t we
come up with similar ideas.
Final Dreams
I still have the dream, the goal of writing, getting
published, and making money. But now I don’t dream of being famous. God knows
it isn’t good for me. So selling books a little at a time while writing new
ones works for me – more comfort, less stress.
Beware
Beware of those writers who aren’t really writers at all,
but advertisers, scammers, con-artists selling a dream. The dreams vary from
one thief to another, but they all basically tell you the same thing: Give us
money and we will teach you how to make money. (Yup. You guessed it. I’ve been
scammed.) It’s kinda like an advance pyramid scheme.
Now, to be fair, there is some value in what some of them
teach, but the cost is so high.
Think of this as unsolicited advice from one writer to
another. You ARE a writer, but please don’t spend your hard-earned money just
to have someone tell you what you already know. You may have dreams of making
big bucks writing, but you don’t have to pay someone to tell you that, or
worse, sell you a different dream from your own.
Go to the people you trust, like this Five Minute Friday community. The small amount of money we pay for the privilege of being hooked
up with other writers (31 day challenge) is totally worth it and helps support
the ministry for other writers down the line. Seek out other writers and get
their hard-earned advice. Join a writing
group, in person preferably. Talk to your librarian. Read books.
Good luck, my fellow writers. Write on!
Dream – 10-26-22 – 31 Days of Writing About Writing
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