I think that in a thousand ways, I have never really lived in the here and now for long enough periods of time to feel rooted in it. Dreams -- desires -- aspirations -- have all pulled me out of time and place and I have lived in that "possible future" so often, it has overlain the real with a fine dusting so tangible, I sometimes have to remind myself that it is 'not yet' the real. Tamar and I were talking today about how so many writers will be entering the Nicholl screenwriting contest this year (deadline Saturday) and the Austin (deadline May 15)... and how that affects their lives. I know winners of these contests, so it's not a mythical thing; it can do wonders for someone's career, but it's also very sobering. Last year, there were a record number of entries to the Nicholl -- well over 6,000, and they anticipate more now. One of the first-round readers commented to a group of friends that she had seen the quality of the writing go up over the last few years, partly because of more books and degrees / classes available around the country, and partly because the internet has brought together people who would have normally been isolated so that they can form critique groups and learn faster from the experience.
How do creative people do it? Hit that wall year after year, determined to create, to find a door, to find a receptive audience? Maybe it's the Lotto mentality -- that one big win will change their lives forever. Maybe it's better planned than that, but whichever it is, they live on that dream, that place somewhere just an angel's breath outside of their grasp, yet so warm and inviting, they can't not try to reach for it.
Sometimes I wonder what I've taught my children. I've had bouts of success -- lots of non-fiction publication, edited a magazine (regional / pre-internet e-zines), won or placed in contests, but it's a wonder my children haven't thought to have me committed for thrusting myself against that wall day after day with nothing big and tangible to say: here's the proof I can do this. I simply dream that I can, and I cannot stop trying. It's hard to watch someone keep trying and wonder if they're just fooling themselves or is it simply a matter of time or timing. I know a lot of people who don't have dreams or ambitions to be something other, something meta, someone that somehow communicates with the world-at-large and the person-in-specific at the same time. They want to be the best mechanic they can be or the best accountant because that helps pay the bills or gets them the bigger car or the college tuition for their kids, and sure, they have hobbies they enjoy and in which they may even be terribly talented, but they don't dream to be other. Sometimes I think... no, I'm pretty sure I know... life would have been enormously easier had I just wanted to be a good construction manager, since that's the "paying" job I do every day. But a part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, seeing me keep trying and being happy at the attempt -- being happy enjoying the journey -- well, maybe that has taught them to dream bigger possibilities and reach for them.
Ultimately, I think of the world as divided into two types of people: those who consume culture and history, and those who create it. And given the nature of creation -- that you can't know everything about it and what impact it will have until it's actually accomplished -- there are definitely no guarantees if you choose to be one of the latter. Maybe you'll succeed and create something with impact and maybe you'll just disappear into the mists. I would rather be the latter, though, and live outside the real, the now, the ordinary, at least in my dreams, than to feel like I had no shot at permanently shaping something in the world.
Posted by toni at April 30, 2004 01:34 AMYou've expressed some of my own thoughts here.
There's a part of me that wants to "make it big", certainly. But for as long as I can remember, writing, drawing, painting have all been a creative outlet for me. There's something in me that has to come out - it's as if I have this creativity gland and sometimes it pumps out more into my system. When it starts pumping, I have to find a pencil, pen, paintbrush or keyboard and get something down on paper. I have to make something. If I were never allowed to do this, that would be the worst punishment.
I'd love to make it big, be successful doing what I love. Make it a career. That's always an ambition. But first, I do it for me; it's a need.