How I wrote my dreams into reality
Dreams come in many different forms – real, fictitious, or a distorted version of both. The moment you wake into reality, the evaporating images are either gone entirely or you spend time interpreting what’s left. Some visions appear in an imaginary realm never to be seen again. Others develop over time, but stick with you like gorilla glue holding two pieces of paper together. That’s how the pages of my dream were written. This one monumental move turned the letters of my pages into cursive resulting in a beautiful flowing stream of words. But between consciousnesses, you’ll find a tale of a young girl whose dreams almost escaped reality.
From the minute I entered a public education facility, any dream I had was squashed by the world. Being terrible in school, including English, and mediocre in all forms of art, I was at a loss. Grades were the only indication I had to tell me what I was good at, which seemed to say F for failure or D for dummy. Even a school authority figure told me to forget College. Especially since my writing skills alone mounted to an eighth grade level at the age of eighteen. It was official – I had been convinced that I wasn’t good at anything. It would have been easier to give up. Or even a relief to wake up and realize my life would consist of a house, a husband, kids, and a job that pays the bills. However, I wanted more. Not just a job, but an occupation that I loved and excelled in. Though I didn’t shine in any subject in school, I enjoyed being creative. Drawing, painting, pottery, and photography – I tried it all, even if I wasn’t that good at any of it.
Despite the struggle, a voice deep inside myself whispered words of encouragement. It was like an author telling me a hopeful story that wasn’t my own. Listening to the low soft fantasy dialogue in my heart urging me to keep trying was hard. It took every ounce of imagination I had left to enroll in College anyway. Hard work changed my D’s into A’s in English. That’s when I decided to take a creative writing class. I’m not sure why I chose to take the course because I had never written anything. Upon arrival in the little square College room, all the blank paper became littered with new ink. Classmates cheered me on after they read what I wrote. My spirits were lifted. However, I shrugged it off thinking I could never make a career out of writing. Not me, not the girl with an eighth grade writing capability.
Once I graduated with a Marketing degree, I went on to have several corporate jobs. A few bad experiences later, I decided to use the money my Uncle had left me to enroll in one more post-College creative writing class. Feeling unfulfilled at my job, a horrible boss, and a bad relationship, I needed something positive in my life. With no expectations, I went to the class every week for a few months. We were assigned a short story project and wrote in a journal with excerpts. When I read them out loud to the class, my professor applauded my efforts. It awoke a passion within me that I didn’t know existed. The short story turned into a novel that I wrote in my spare time while working full-time. That’s when my dream of becoming a writer was born. How do you write for a living without any experience? You practice. A lot.
Afterwards, I decided I would try to become a novelist. Two books later, they are still unpublished, but my love for writing trumps the disappointment. I feel lucky to have found something that makes me this happy. Once I finished writing the books, I wrote articles, poems, and short stories. You name it, I wrote it. Many submissions later, I was rejected over and over again. Self-doubt plagued my daydream. The REM cycle had pulled me back into the dark; I wasn’t sure how to distinguish between my dreams and reality.
When I lost my full-time job, I volunteered to help a non-profit with their blog writing. Turns out, I actually liked blog writing. I found a way to make them creative. It was an unexpected surprise, but my mind was open to the new possibility of writing in all forms. Three months later, I found another full-time Marketing job. Without experience or a degree to agree with the writing profession, I had no choice. Bills were pilling up and I saw my dream vanishing once again from memory. However, I kept volunteering to write for free. With almost a frantic nightmarish desperation, I submitted a story I wrote to a local newspaper. One thing led to another, and that local newspaper asked me to write a column for them. Being asked to write was the wake-up call I needed. This dream was reoccurring and couldn’t be ignored.
Then, I lost yet another job. That’s when I decided to quit the corporate life for good and pursue writing. After stumbling into the doors of a small newspaper, I began writing for pennies. Writing stories makes me happy. Even if the only people who read them are living in a small town, my life feels complete. Payment is in small increments, but I did it. I write, but the dream doesn’t stop there. They go beyond the frozen moments of sleep. And, I won’t stop until I’m walking among the clouds.
Every now and then, the voices of my past tell me I can’t and the dream fades faster into the depths of a vast forest. Luckily, the author within tells me nothing is impossible. The world teaches us that taking risks is too risky and that the result of failure is humiliation. It’s best to keep your dream within the realm of reality. I disagree. Only those who wake-up and realize the truth will turn a dream into reality.
In America, we loose hope in finding a passion because we’re distracted, or we don’t think one exists for us, or we’re told we can’t by the world or by ourselves. Unhappiness is the product of this hallucination. It’s been sold by the world to our hearts. It tells us we can’t do the unthinkable. Don’t listen to the limitations that others or the world imprint in your imagination. Believe that you can turn a dream into an idea, an idea into words, words into a story, and bring a story to life. You write the words of your own story. Dream often and write well.
