“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
Once upon a time there was a little girl who simply knew she was going to grow up to be a veterinarian, a ballet dancer, an equestrian, a writer, an actress, and above all, a princess. I suppose one out of six is not so bad. The vet thing was great until I found out it meant working with animals that were sick. Karate replaced dancing when I was sixteen out of a healthy dose of self-preservation. The horse thing left when I learned that it was actually painful to ride for more than about fifteen minutes. My dramatic flair never found another stage after high school. I grudgingly admit that I will probably not wake up one morning in a castle and be a real princess. My writing was the only piece that was my constant companion. Writing is my real dream.
As it turns out, it is also my real heartache. When I was that little girl, I thought I would be one of those authors whose name alone would be enough to drive the masses of adoring fans to the bookstores. “The Collected Works of KC” would stay on the tippy-top of the best-seller list for record spans and everywhere I’d go, there would be kids tugging on their mothers’ sleeve saying “Mommy! Mommy! That’s her!”
Reality check.
Nope. It didn’t happen. Okay, so, why not? Could it be because I’ve written volumes of poetry and countless stories and a handful of books but only about five people have read them? Nah, that couldn’t be it… Could it? *Sigh* I suppose so. As my luck would have it, it’s a real pain in the patella to get a book published. If self-publishing, there’s design and marketing and promoting, then you have to get someone to like you. If going through a publisher, first you get someone to like you, then there’s design and marketing and promoting. I’ve got the writing part down… the rest of it, not so much.
But the dream is still there. In fact, if I don’t write, there is a vacuum in my soul that nothing else can fill. I have hobbies and other interests, but I could live without them. I know what it’s like to live without them. It’s different with writing. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t dream of writing. Everything fuels it. Let me give an example…
The evening light outside the window was failing. Sapphire skies washed out to dull and deepening gray, casting the world into growing shadow. She squinted at the chip squeezed between her fingers. She wanted to make sure it was positioned correctly. The bug would do no good if she put it in upside down. She wouldn’t survive the night if she failed in her mission for a reason as dumb as that. Fear pulsed through her; had it been too long? She strained to remember where the latch was since she couldn’t see it any longer. The fingers of her left hand, now slick with perspiration, slid along the ridge and stopped at the minuscule slit in the casing. With her fingernail, she pried the aperture open the slightest bit, willing it to remain silent as the shadow. The sharp snap of the cover popping off in her hand froze her blood. Had anyone heard that? She counted seconds… one… two… three… the world was still… seven… eight… Her heartbeat rang in her chest until she was sure it was echoing through the hallway behind her… Fourteen… fifteen. With the cover removed, she could feel the slot for the bug. Carefully, she slid it into place with an inaudible ‘click’. The moment she felt it connect, she slowly slid the cover back into place. No one could know she’d been there. No one could suspect that she existed at all.
Yeah, that was me trying to put a memory chip in my phone without waking up my sleeping baby in her crib a few feet away. Anything can end up as part of a story. It’s like the cut-away scenes in movies when the character is absorbed in their imagination. That’s where I live. That’s where I write. It’s not real, per se, but it is real in a different way to me. When I write it down, it can become that kind of real to others as well. The only problem I face when the creative juices start flowing is that I can’t write it down fast enough; It threatens to elude me if I don’t grab it with both hands and hold on tight.
I don’t write to get rich. I don’t write for notoriety. I don’t write for the enjoyment of others, although it’s a happy side effect if that happens. I write because if I didn’t, I might as well quit breathing. I write because I dream. In the night and in the day, in the middle of activity and when I’m still, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I am an instant away from another place and time. My imagination knows no bounds, which means my dreams, good or bad, joyful or terrifying, peaceful or sorrowful, are all beautiful. All of this fills me with my original dream from once upon a time ago, now grown up but no less playful, and binds me closer to that facet of my being that is, and will always be… a writer.