February 12, 2003

• Writing Down Dreams

  
  

  I've been reading J D Robb mysteries.  For those of you who aren't familiar with these books, they are authored by Nora Roberts under the pen name J D Robb.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Nora Roberts, well, you'll just have to check the NYT bestseller lists for yourself because you won't believe me if I tell you about her phenomenal success.  In an age of publishing no more than one novel per year for fear of saturating the market, she already has 6 new releases scheduled for 2003.  Add to that the 7 books that have previously been released only in hardcover that are being released for the first time as paperbacks and you have something beyond a publisher's dream.  I wonder when she sleeps.

  
  

  The best job I ever had was the year I worked for a little book store in Little Rock, Arkansas.  My boss, Bud, paid me what he could, but there just weren't a lot of profits and I was lucky if I made $200 a week there.  (Bud also had a standing policy that if someone came in with "that" look in their eye, I was to "accidentally" sell the book to them for our cost.  That was fantastic.)  I had to have a second job to pay my bills. 

  
  

  I used to wonder about the people who came into the store and why they chose the books they did.  I wasn't like the FBI trying to figure out whether your reading choices meant you might be a terrorist, I was more interested in how quickly I came to know the tastes of our regular customers.  How did I know that one person who had enjoyed a novel by author a would also enjoy one by author b when another person who had enjoyed a would despise b?  I'm not psychic (at least not in that way.)  I talked to people and came to recognize and respect their dreams.

  
  

  I didn't limit myself to reading one or even three different genres.  I read everything.  Bud used to laugh at me, as I'd take home two books a night and six if I had a day off.  Then as I read the books (you didn't think that was my dream job because of the long hours and low pay did you?) I was able to match the dream they painted with the customer looking for that particular vision. 

  
  

  I believe that the stories we tell can and often are more significant than the data we collect about our world.  The dreams we dream and the narratives we translate our dreams into are sculpted by our longings and become our destiny.  When we pick up a book, the extent to which we identify with the characters, their choices and their reactions to their circumstances is the degree to which we are confirmed in our own choices and reactions.  I like books in which contain easy banter between friends, warm bonds within families, and hot sex between mates.  I prefer stories in which there is a puzzle to be solved, a battle to be won, or a step taken toward a better way. 

  
  

  So why, oh, why is it that when I try to write a story, my characters insist on being dark brooding types with a thin sense of humor?  Why do they make stupid choices, wallow in pride and mistrust anything except honest sarcasm?  I've been working on a short story for dread pirate's contest.  (Take it as a sign of the depth of my feeling about this that I'm breaking a cardinal rule by providing a link to his site.)  I've been working on it for almost two months.  I've ripped it up, deleted it and started over a dozen times.  I know my character's name and her circumstances, I know her motivations and I know the decision she has to make.  I've just about come to dislike her more than any real person I've ever known.  And I realized that the reason I'm having such a problem with her, is that she refuses to acknowledge her dream.  

  • 1:12 pm
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