Oneironautics

In the interest of actually doing this thing that we said we'd be doing when we started doing this thing, the Coffee Spoon Auditorium has posted a new story of mine called 'A Little Dream of Me'. Though, in point of fact, "new" is not a very accurate description, as it was written at least a year ago, probably more. The fact that it is only now available to the public tells you something about me as a writer.

You see, I'm not a very good writer. You might be compelled to disagree (and, hey, you might not), but when I say that, I'm not referring to the quality of my prose. I simply mean that I'm not all that adept at consistently producing actual writing. You'd probably think that a carpenter wasn't very good at his job if he took a couple of years to make a table, abandoned a set of cabinets halfway through making them, and went months at a time without picking up a saw. Well, that's me. I give up on ideas, some of them (if I do say so myself) quite good ones. I allow myself to be intimidated by the sheer weight of words I know a certain tale requires. I'll nitpick a sentence to death while key plot points are waiting to be sorted. It's a wonder I write anything at all.

But 'A Little Dream of Me' just sorta happened. It started as a dream itself, which is generally a less promising prospect than it sounds. But the idea got into my head, and rattled around, and took up space that I needed for witty one-liners. So in the end I wrote it down to get rid of it; my word-processor acting as a couple of Panadol to deal with the headache of an unwritten story. And that was it, as far as I was concerned. I never planned to show it to anyone at all, apart from maybe a friend or two if they ever seemed interested, which they never did. It had served its purpose and could now retire.

Until Ben says that we should give this writing community thing a red-hot go. First off I had 'Schlomo's Act', which I legitimately wanted to show people. Good enough, but where do we go after that? I have an idea developing, but can we wait till I'm fifty, when it'll hopefully be done? So I showed Ben 'A Little Dream of Me', and to my shock he likes it. Up it goes, and I have to write a blog to introduce it. And what do I say about a story I wrote almost involuntarily?

Normally, when I conceive of some idea that I think is worthy of writing down, I'll have some purpose behind it, some theme or message that mortars all the little syllables into a big strong mass. It helps to impress people who liked it, and you can use it to embarass people who got it wrong. But as far as I know, I wasn't thinking much of anything before I wrote this one. I guess if there's any meaning it's that we do have to fight to make ourselves happy, because the barriers come from all over the place.

Of course I can pull that cheap cop-out trick that writers loves where they say, "Well, what I thought the story meant doesn't matter; the true meaning comes from the readers." So if you've got a meaning for me, lay it out. I'd love to hear from you.