Dreams

Yesterday morning I awoke with a dream still vividly imprinted on my mind.  A scene I had been dreaming seemed particularly enjoyable and funny to me.  What mattered right at that moment was not whether a story could develop but whether I wanted to continue thinking about it.  To fall asleep at night I always need some type of story to play out in my mind, otherwise I'll be too focused on trying to fall asleep.  And so, waking up thinking of an arrogant little fellow telling a queen, "You shouldn't play that song today, since it's the anniversary of the day we lost the revolutionary war," needed to be put to the test, as with all my daydreams that come out at night to put me asleep, to see if it could occupy my mind.

Unfortunately, as I played the scene out in my mind and tried developing it, I soon found that it would go nowhere.  It certainly could not beat out my current night-time daydream story--my rescuing an oppressed tribe from a tyrannical king and then later returning to the kingdom to save it and rebuild it with a more generous spirit--which has been my story of choice for about a week now.  I did, however, develop this dream of mine about the boy and queen, originally just a glimpse of a memory of what I had dreamed, enough to discover a treasure: a wonderful play or novel.

I've discussed this before, but I think that there's a misunderstanding about writers and artists that we have simply been blessed with an imagination and spurts of inspiration that others have not been born with.  Yes, we are all born with different natural talents and gifts in varying degrees, imagination no doubt among them--and perhaps also moments of inspiration--but anyone can have a good imagination and/or billions of moments of inspiration by training that part of their mind.  And that's all I mean to say with this post.  I've already started writing up a novel titled The Queen and Some Guy that will be a comedy in the mode of The Princess Bride, the book and the movie, that will serve as my side project while I work on completing my bike trip book and then the expansion of my master's thesis.  It started from a dream, so we can stereotype and say, "Aw man, I wish I had dreams like that, he's so lucky," or we can be more truthful and say, "He's really going to work out that one little picture he had, he really works hard at what he does."  Dreams and visions come to all of us.  What matters is whether or not we poke and touch, squeeze and pull, shrink and expand the dream or vision to get all that we can out of them--that's part of what it means to be a writer.

The portrait I gave you of the dream may not seem like much.  Trust me, it was and will be funny.  And perhaps, if one day you find yourself reading a story by that title by me, you'll think back to this day and think, "Wow, I thought this story would be a total piece of crap." 

Anyway, just as a little behind-the-scenes look at some of the torments a writer experiences, I'll talk briefly of the decision I had to make between screenplay, play, short story, and novel.  All the time a writer must decide how best to present the things flying through their mind.  Even if the form of the presentation is easy to decide upon, almost every sentence and word becomes a new struggle and decision: when I say this, should I be serious or light? short, powerful sentence or long, well-explained sentence?  harsh-sounding words or soft-sounding words?  will a comma here make it easier to understand?  do I care if the reader understands this sentence, or is what follows more important?  what in the frick am I doing anyway? 

The pieces of humor and drama that I was developing in my mind of the queen and the boy (see, right then I first wrote "for the queen and the boy," but the meaning totally changes simply by saying "of" instead of "for"; I changed it to "of" because I believe that stories have a life of their own to some extent, like Pinocchio, and I don't want to appear as if I am giving the story all of its life) seemed best suited to be presented visually, in a movie or play.  Very quickly I dismissed a screenplay because some of the quality elements of the story being developed seem to need sight into the two main characters' thoughts.  Movies can do that, sure, but only with great writing, directing, and acting, and I can't honestly say right now, even with my ego, that I am up to the task or that I believe my screenplay would hire great directing and acting.  It would make a pretty good pre-teenage romance film, maybe, but I don't want my time and effort to go to waste by writing a screenplay that doesn't get picked up when I could write a good novel or something.  Plays make it much easier to see into the thoughts of a character because, if nothing else, the character can talk directly to the audience.  This seemed promising: in a number of cases I already thought of, I laughed out loud, despite being alone and just waking up and sleepy and I basically laughing at my own joke, thinking of the arrogant young man turning to the audience and saying, "what the frick."  Clearly the young man character will be modeled after me somewhat.  The problem with the play idea, though, is that the scenes would have to be concentrated and more purpose-oriented.  Even the greatest comedy ever written, The Importance of Being Earnest, contains scenes that are all entirely purpose-oriented.  For this story I didn't like the idea of that.  And so I came to a simple story.  But would a short story work better?  To a great extent I don't need to answer that question right now.  The good thing is I now have a form, a written story, and can get writing.  If I cannot stretch and retain quality then I will have a short story, it's as simple as that.  After all, even The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a short story; even Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, which has such a large scope it's not funny, is a short story; both cover the entire life story of a person. 

Now, I think,  you have some excellent insight into the genesis of a writer's writing. 

Inspiration

My last post included a little tidbit on the common perceptions of artists and writers.  Mainly what I want to focus on is the very wrong perception that we only work when inspiration hits us, as if we sit around doing a narrow range of activities from nothing to smoking pot or getting drunk.  Basically what this perception amounts to, especially in this country where most Americans are diseased with a work-complex,  is that artists and writers are lazy, useless to society, and generally a waste.  If you are reading this and don't share these conclusions, then great; but my hunch is that the vast majority of people, even those who appreciate the arts and perhaps dabble in artistic endeavor themselves, still think that something called inspiration does or should drive all artistic work.

That's just plain wrong or misguided, whatever you want to call it.  Too many self-proclaimed or aspiring artists/writers, poets and painters especially, say that they work when they are feeling inspired.  And then if they are not feeling inspired then they don't do anything.  I know a lot of these people and, quite frankly, I do not like them because they are the reason artists of all kinds are poorly perceived.

There is nothing wrong with writing or painting as a hobby.  If your artistic work is just a hobby, though, then please, when I say I am a writer, do not reply, "Oh yeah, I write poems every now and then when I feel inspired."  Frick in the balls that upsets me.  If you meet an architect, you don't say to them, "Yeah, I build little toy houses as a hobby every now and then when I feel inspired."  If you somehow meet a professional football player, the last thing you should say to them is, "I played football in middle school and still play a pick-up game every now and then when we're all feeling inspired."  Who cares!!

Ok, "who cares" with two exclamation points might be a little harsh.  The point is, there is very little comparison between someone's hobby and someone else's profession or career, even if it's the same activity.  You make clay pots every month with the pottery club, you say?  Great.  Does that mean your pots are sold at the Pottery Barn?  I don't think so.  Obviously there is very little actual pottery sold at that store, but I'm making a point here.  You could be very good at this hobby of yours but it does not make you a writer, painter, sculptor, poet, or artist of any kind.  As long as you think of it as something that you do as a hobby or every now and then or just whenever you feel inspired, there will always be a large gap between what you're doing and what the career artist is doing.

Poetry is perhaps the easiest of all the arts to pretend at.  Many people think it takes just a few minutes to write a poem, and then they shop the poem around as if it's the next "On a Grecian Urn" or "God's Grandeur" or William Carlos Williams.  Oh silliness.  Real poets, the career poets, agonize over poems.  It's fairly common that a poet will spend all day writing a poem and then be unable to sleep at night questioning whether they should add a semi-colon, or something. 

An artist or writer cannot afford to wait for inspiration or for the next word from a muse.  Writing is my life, I must write to live.  That means that I write with or without inspiration.  By God I hope I have inspiration, motivation, determination, and whatever other word you can think of that fits, but if I don't then I must write anyway.  And if I simply cannot write then you will find me in serious arrears.  If I cannot write then I am thinking about what to write, how I can't write, what's wrong with me that I can't write, whether I'll ever succeed, oh dear God why am I such a failure!  If I cannot write then I also cannot just move on to something else.  Writers may have other jobs but they are not fall-back options or anything of the sort, they are merely meant to keep the writer afloat to be a writer.  When a writer has another job they often work themselves to death because when they are not 'working,' they are doing the real work of writing.  This is even more true if the writer or artist is also a born priest or architect.  Oh what little time they must have to sleep!

I encourage writing or something other artistic activity as a hobby for everyone, but please do not think that writing is simply a hobby that I or anyone else have made into a life.  Writing is my life.  I am writing all the time, even when I am not.  Again my friend Alexandra, who is a far better artist than I ever will be, put it well when she told me not to worry about the times when all I felt like doing was reading or traveling because even then my mind was writing.

In a way I think that I create my own inspiration and my own muse.  The artist's mind needs training like anything else.  Since I have trained my writer's mind 'inspiration' may come to me more than others.  That does not make me lucky, it simply makes me a writer.  Hence there is another difference between a writer and someone with a hobby: I create my inspiration through training and keeping at it, and others wait for inspiration.

Basically this post is one big act of self-praise, so feel free to kneel before me whenever you so desire.