Writing Resolutions

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Never have. I’ve never understood why the first day of an arbitrary new year is the one where goals should start. What really makes January first such a special day?

If I decide to set a goal, I do it on the day I realize how badly I need it, whether at end of March or on a midsummer’s night. Almost a year and a half ago, about the beginning of August, I realized that for years I’d pushed aside the biggest dream I’d ever had, the one of becoming a published writer, and on that day I took the first step to making my dream come true.

Of course, it hasn’t happened yet. But I’m still fighting for it. Every day.

And part of fighting for my dream is helping others to achieve the same thing. I’ve made a lot of writer friends over the last year and a half, one which is one of my critique partners. I’m taking a break from reading his latest manuscript to write this blog post because it’s got me thinking.

This manuscript is the third he’s sent me. And the thing is, all the while I’m reading it, I’m hoping that this is the one for him, the manuscript that makes his dreams come true. I’m hoping this is the manuscript that gets him an agent, a publishing deal, a published book.

That’s not to say I didn’t love his first two manuscripts. I did. He did. But no matter how many agents asked to read those other two manuscripts, none of them loved his stories like we did. So, like me, he’s written another story, given himself another shot. Because he has to. It doesn’t matter if it’s January first or not. When you have a dream like ours, you work all year. Or for years. Whatever it takes.

I’ve been there on the days he’s read agents’ emails asking for fulls, and when he’s gotten their rejection emails, just as he’s been there for all of mine. Through it all, we keep encouraging each other, knowing that the next agents we query just might be the ones that love our stories. It’ll happen, we tell each other. IT WILL.

So maybe what I’m saying here, the whole point of this post, isn’t to talk about resolutions. Maybe it’s to say that on December thirty-first, January first, or any other arbitrary day, what’s better than a resolution is a renewal of hope, to know that right around the corner could be the manuscript, the agent, the day my critique partner or I take that next step toward achieving our dreams. And that’s why we keep going.

What This Writer Dreams

My friends and family, along with anyone who’ll listen on Facebook and Twitter, know that I dream of finding an agent and becoming a published author. I dream of walking into a bookstore one day and seeing my book on a young adult shelf, a gorgeous hardcover, a small stack just waiting for readers.

That’s when I’m awake. Then there are the nights where I dream of getting an email from an agent that’s had my full manuscript for a few weeks. It’s not a rejection email (though I’ve gotten some of those), but one that says something like Can we chat? I’ve read enough success stories to know that how it starts, how the dream begins to really come true.

Dreams like that are rare, small reminders that there’s always hope.

Then there are the days where I’m stuck on something in my current work in progress. I reach a point in the plot where I know what I want to happen two steps from now, but I’m not sure how to get from here to there. Or I’m caught on a character’s decision, knowing that whichever way the character decides to go, it’ll shape the rest of the story. Or sometimes, it’s even just one word that trips me up.

And then my mind goes to work. I often figure out what I need sometime during the day, most often while driving to or from my day job. But sometimes that’s not enough and my subconscious takes over.

Based on what most people say about their dreams, I think mine are unusual. Unlike most people, I don’t dream about people, places, or things I know; my dreams are often vivid enough that I remember them in the morning, but I can’t ever peg any setting or person as something or someone I’ve encountered while awake.

For example, if my dream takes place in a library, it’s not the one in downtown Cincinnati, the one from my university, or even the local branch that I went to when I was in elementary school. It’s something more along the lines of the British Museum Reading Room plus my favorite local bookstore, Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Rookwood, but with the feel of the high school library from Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

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Furthering the example, the people in my dream’s library are never characters from my WIP or people I know/knew. Usually they’re partly my characters, partly from whatever novel I’m reading, and partly from who-knows-where. And of course they’re not doing normal library things, either; they’re playing hopscotch, cooking an elaborate meal, or roasting marshmallows over a bonfire.

All this is to say that my dreams are pretty imaginative. Sometimes they help me out with my WIP writing problem, and sometimes they don’t…at least not directly. But I write down what I remember, tweak the details, and put what I can into other stories. Do other writers have dreams like mine, where nothing and no one is familiar from their waking lives, where they can use pieces in their writing? I don’t know, but I hope so. And I hope that someday something I’ve dreamt while asleep helps me achieve my waking dream of being a published author.