And you know what, I'm okay with that. The world can live without another novel. Teaching and parenting--those are things I can do right now that have both immediate and long-term positive impact on my family and my world. I think I'm a better parent and teacher than I am a writer anyway, and besides, when I do more serious writing again, I think it will be in the nonfiction genre. So...I'm fine with not writing the Next Great American Novel.
My subconscious, apparently, does not agree.
Every so often, I have these epic dreams that seem to last all night long and leave me exhausted when I wake up. Not only am I experiencing the plot twists and scene changes of these dreams--I'm also viewing them as a writer who needs to remember every detail to write the story down when I wake up. If I can just remember everything, I will have an instant best-seller on my hands. So I spend the whole night in intense concentration, crafting dialogue and naming characters, even replaying scenes that I want to change. No wonder I wake up exhausted!
All of which would be worth it if the dream really did result in a good novel. Because my biggest problem has always been in coming up with ideas (a problem; successful writers will tell you they ALWAYS have ideas percolating) so if I had a fabulous ready-made idea handed to me by my subconscious, I WOULD find a way to get it written.
Instead, my subconscious always comes up with something stupid. Trite, cliched, and improbable. I will spare you the convoluted details of what I dreamed last night, but while I was dreaming it, the "writer" part of my brain was thinking, "This is so cool! It's like 'Harry Potter' mixed with 'Twilight!'"
I promise you, I have no chance of becoming the next Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling. I just wish my subconscious would accept that, because it's exhausting to keep writing in my sleep!
As I'm sure you might know, Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight following a dream she had... so maybe you WILL be the next SMeyer. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThere's a piece of me that would love to write a novel...but I have no grand ideas either. I once started writing bits and pieces of a chick-lit sort of story (a la Sophie Kinsella or Emily Giffin, that sort of thing), but never got too far with it. I was really inspired one summer and kept writing down ideas as they came to me, I had so many different scenes sparking... but then it just fizzled. Ah well!
There was no way it was going to be the next great novel anyway, but it was a fun writing hobby while the inspiration lasted.
The good thing about being a writer, is that you can always do that once your children are a little older -- so keep your dream alive and one day it can become a reality!
I've had those sorts of dreams. They are the most exhausting way to spend a night short of babysitting hundreds of teenagers in a bowling alley with a karaoke room.
ReplyDelete(I've done that.)