Dare to Dream

What do you do when your dreams come true?

I’ve just been re-reading this post again. I wrote it over half a year ago, and yet it seems so pertinent to my present situation.
I wrote that post in a fairly rare burst of hope – and now I have received what I hoped for. As I wrote back then, “you can’t out-dream God.”

As full as my morning pages (and let’s be honest, blog posts) were of chafing against the DDJ, wishing to be freed of it and hoping to ‘one day’ be a full-time writer, I didn’t actually expect it to happen.

Not that I thought I was going to grow old and die in the DDJ, but I didn’t really think that I was going to get the chance to live my dream, either. I expected to settle for second best. Or third best. Food on the table, anyway.

Or else I thought that yes, God has a purpose for my life, but it’s probably something deeply self-sacrificial and rather unpleasant. As Julia Cameron writes, “We are not accustomed to thinking that God’s will for us and our own inner dreams can coincide.”

As much as I felt sorry for the poor historical figures who thought that God would be pleased at them seeking out suffering (and usually pointless suffering – pointy suffering seldom works to your timetable), deep down I believed the same.
I didn’t really believe that God’s will for my life could be something I’d enjoy. I underestimated God. (As J.B. Phillips wrote, Your God Is Too Small.)

This is not to say that whatever you want to do must be what God wants, too – but it doesn’t mean it can’t be.
I don’t know what God’s dream is for the rest of my life (or how long that is) – maybe I’ll always be a full-time writer, maybe I won’t. I don’t know.

What I do know is that the dream I have scarcely dared to dream for tens of years, the dream so dear I have sometimes not dared hold it close for the pain of losing it – that dream is about to come true.

And now I have to live up to it.
The problem with a dream life is that it isn’t real. You can imagine you’ll be as perfect as – well, as perfect as you can imagine. When you actually get there it turns out you are still not perfect yet and you still have to contend with all the weaknesses of character that have plagued you all along.
But you can dream of being better, and work at making that dream come true.

What do you dare to dream? And what are the dreams you don’t yet dare?

Look Both Ways Before You Cross

Looking forward to the new year, but also looking back over the year just passed. Coincidentally, it has been exactly a year since I started this blog.

During that time I have written all of eighty-eight posts (although about 25 are simple quote-and-picture posts). Over the course of the year I have gone through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, reviewed various books on writing, and asked for advice on a myriad of subjects (moving house, staying sane…) which I mostly didn’t get.

I also set goals for myself (see here and here) which I mostly failed to meet, in that I did not finish my WIP by December 31st. But I did make some strides in taking myself more seriously as a writer and doing a bit of would-like-to-be-professional development. As with so many things, Work In Progress.

Among the questions which I have mulled over during the year are whether to keep using my nom de plume (my parents, by some oversight, failed to name me Sinistra at birth) and what precisely it is I am trying to achieve here.


This blog was originally intended as a form of accountability against procrastination, but since no-one is actually holding me accountable but me anyway, that purpose has taken a bit of a back seat.
Procrastination is apparently one of the mysteries of the human condition, as articulated by Paul back in the 50s AD: “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.” (Romans 7:15, New Living Translation).

Motivation is perhaps key, but I struggle to find a motivation strong enough to overcome tiredness and self-doubt. Duty doesn’t cut it (unlike Frederic, I am not the Slave of Duty); ambition is by no means my strong suit – perhaps I just need to develop more character. Or a means of reminding myself of what it is I stand to lose.

In any case, over the coming year I hope to look more at subjects of interest to more than myself – that is to say, less of the writing, and more of the whatever-I-happen-to-be-obsessed-with-at-the-moment – steampunk, knitting, millinery, sustainability, odd bits of history, or any combination of the above.

Looking back, my most popular post by far (inasmuch as I can tell, since the majority of views are recorded as “homepage/archive”) is Great Wizards of Literature. I blush a little every time I see another hit on it, as it was originally titled Favourite Wizards of Literature, only some were more great than favourite. It wasn’t until after I had clicked ‘publish’ that I realised I had listed one of my own creations as a Great Wizard of Literature.

He isn’t great, really, but he’s doing his best. (If he’s very lucky, he may one day be published.) An excellent example of how not to blow your own trumpet.

You’re doing it wrong.

The gong for Most Under-Appreciated Post (from my point of view, anyway) goes to Mid-Week Quote: Reading, for the play on word(s) if nothing else.

On an entirely unrelated tangent, if your New Year’s Resolution includes being more generous, giving to charity, doing something good for someone else or even (aim high!) saving someone’s life, consider this from Throwim Way Leg, one of the blogs I follow.
Getting an ultrasound machine really will make a life-or-death difference to people in Papua New Guinea. Imagine if your local hospital had no ultrasound, no x-ray, no lab for tests… you get the idea.
And do please feel free to pass the link on to anyone you think might be interested.

Thanking you all for your company in 2013, and looking forward to your company in 2014, I remain,
Sinistra Inksteyne hand250