Grandiose Dreams Masquerading as Plans

I could tell you that my great dream is to develop my writing career to a point where I can support myself and my family. It’s true. As far as it goes. The problem is that I’m much greedier than that. I want more. Much more.

The movies, comics, games, action figures based on my stories and characters– sure, those would be nice. But you know what? Those are the means by which my most secret (to this point) dreams may be accomplished. What are these lofty imaginings? Here, in no particular order, they are.

1.       Donate 10% of everything I make to the charities I support. Granted. I already donate to the organizations that are close to my heart, but it’s not from my income. So far. Also, no, I won’t say which orgs right now. I kind of feel like charity should be like religion – between you and whoever’s getting your money.

2.       The Great Walk of Africa - 110 miles of hiking across Tsavo National Park. I would want this to be paid for 100% with my income. No pressure. I only need about $30,000 to pull this off for me and my husband. <cough>

3.       Macadamia Nut Pancakes. Yeah. This one takes a little explanation. During a weeklong vacation in Kailua, Hawaii, a storm wind blew in. It bustled through and whispered to me as it passed. “Home,” it said. And I decided that living in Hawaii would be just fine. It didn’t hurt that in Kailua is a restaurant called Boots & Kimo’s. They serve killer Macadamia Nut Pancakes. The rest of their food is yummy, too. There’s also a great burger joint in Kailua. Not to mention the fine art of shave ice in flavors you’ve never heard of. At any rate, I know living in Hawaii is expensive. Islands are just like that. So if I was going to make it a goal, I might as well go for broke, right? Why not aspire to one of the huge, gorgeous homes that dot the area? I’d turn it into a writer’s retreat. The family and I would live in one, smaller part of the house. The rest would become B&B style writers’ rooms. Sign up, fly out, and shut yourself away in your private space to write, or join others in the common room for writing time, tea time, wine, brainstorming sessions – whatever. Of course, I’d have to name rooms after Word Whore novels or something, though notably, for the darker books, I’m not likely to carry the theme over to the room décor. Naturally, we’d provide shuttle service to the Macadamia Nut Pancakes. And to the beach. Until then. Here’s the closest I’ve come to owning a piece of paradise.

My Wildest Writer Dream

by Jeffe Kennedy

First off, little plug for my friend Veronica Scott's debut release, Priestess of the Nile. It goes on sale tomorrow, but you can pre-order it on Carina here or Amazon here or Barnes & Noble here. Ancient Egypt for the win!

So, when I see the topic of what is my wildest writer dream, the first thing that pops into my mind is that scene from Bedazzled. Yes, yes - the movie with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley. For one of his wishes, he's a famous writer. I tried to find a still of the scene, but apparently everyone thinks a still without Elizabeth Hurley in it is a waste of kilobytes. Actually, I'd be hard pressed to argue with that.

At any rate, he strolls into the fancy restaurant/club and everyone flocks to him, hanging on every witty word. He's wealthy, famous and admirable.

For some reason, this is, in the dark, narcissistic corners of my heart, the nucleus of my writer's yearning.

When I separate the dream from this emotional component, I come up with different stuff. After all, I know that writers, even famous, wealthy and admirable ones, are just never rock stars. I wrote about this before on my personal blog, about how even Neil Gaiman isn't a rock star. But defining what success is can be a daunting task.

Naturally, I made a spreadsheet.

Yeah, you all knew that was coming.

I tried to be completely honest with myself, to parse out the dream. I made columns for the different aspects of success. I hope you all appreciate that I'm sharing this, because now you'll see just how silly I am. I titled my columns Practical, Financial, Artistic, Ego and Altruistic. Under those, I listed everything I could possibly want: riches, fame, nobel prizes, being celebrated by posterity.

Yeah, it's all in there.

Then I prioritized and looked at which things were really most important to me. After all, Jane Austen is a celebrated writer, but died never knowing it. Is that really worth wanting?

So, my goals are staged, with steps to reach them. Getting enough money coming in to support myself through writing is the first and foremost dream. Others, like the white house overlooking the Mediterranean, come later. I decided that having a theme park built around my characters is not something I need. I would love to see a movie made of one of my stories. Most everything in the Ego column I consider stuff to be wary of wanting. That chocolate-covered heroin for writers.

Still, if you see me in the bar sometime, feel free to run up and exclaim about how witty, wonderful and admirable I am.

I'll definitely buy you a drink.