Childhood Dreams

Aspiring Writer

When i was young, from the time i was about eight or so, the only thing that i wanted to be when i grew up was an author. I wanted to write books. Even before that, writing had been something that i loved. But, as i grew older, it became something that took more and more of a backseat. Not because it wasn't something that i wanted, but because it was just not practical any longer.

When i was five, my next-door neighbour and i created lots of little books; they were mainly pictured and each had a little keyhole on the cover, as if we could pretend that only we held the keys. Age eight, i made a book about a mouse and her travels. It had shiny, silver contact sprinkled among the fully illustrated pages. When i was eleven, Georgie and i went on holiday together and invented two sets of twins, their four horses and all of their adventures. You get the picutre.

Every night i would fall asleep with story ideas running through my head. I would plan characters, plot lines, relationships, all of the little details. Every night. Until i was about sixteen. As i got older, obviously the characters changed and the plots thickened. In year ten, my personal project was to write a novel. I managed to do so, albeit making is somewhat shorter than was the original plan. But hey, i'm still talking a good hundred pages.

What happened to make all of that stop? The endless planning, vivid imaginings, story ideas filling my dreams? I'm not one hundred percent sure. But one day i made an observation. All of my stories were running along a similar track. That track was remarkably similar to the way in which i wanted my life to run. Plots were based on things that happened to me, disasters all came incredibly close to home and endings for my characters were always what i dreamed that my endings would be. It just wasn't working.

No matter how far along i got in thinking of an idea, there would always come a point where things would begin to wind up. And i'd draw a blank. Writers block of the most insane kind. It was slightly like i couldn't come up with an ending until i knew my ending, or at least was happy enough with where i was that i could come up with something that didn't mirror my own life. Gradually, my nightly imaginations became far and few between.

So, i've put my writing aspirations on hold for now. Eventually, i'll get past the phase i'm in, where my ideas are just that - ideas - and not strange Dahli-style comparisons with my own life. I'm figuring that that time will be as soon as i've got my life sorted. Which should be anyday now. But one thing is for sure; this is one childhood dream that isn't being put out to pasture just yet. A few years from now, you can keep a lookout for my name on the cover of a book, prominently displayed in the window of a big bookstore.

Annabel