Writer Dreams

by Allison Pang

This is probably going to sound rather shallow, but I don't know if I have specific writer dreams.

Wanting. Longing. Desire for THINGS to happen? Absolutely.

But not specific dreams.

I mean, on one level there's still a part of me that sort of gapes at the fact that I'm paid to write at all. But I guess the long and short of it is that I equate dreams as being somewhat passive.  That may not be a fair assessment, but I don't really give myself much time to dream.

I plan.

Or I suppose I give myself goals I think I can accomplish. Which is not always easy. The market is such a fickle thing for publishing. Sure, I might sell movie rights, for example...but in reality that doesn't mean anything - and it's nothing I can really influence once they're sold. A production company could sit on them for years, but until a project actually gets greenlit by a studio? It's dust in the wind. (Exciting dust in the wind, but still.)

And I blame my mother for this bit of uber-practicality, but I also think there's a bit of a defense mechanism going on for me. I dislike setting myself up for disappointment. Hell, even during the initial round of phone calls from agents and editors a few years ago, I sorta clamped down on all the excitement, terrified the rug was going to be yanked. I *still* haven't actually celebrated it properly yet. I probably won't, at this point.

Some of the things others have talked about this week - fan art, comic books, action figures - awesome things to want. I want them too. And frankly, I fangirl myself all the time. I do get some fan art...and I commission others, simply because I can.

I've got a comic book proposal out there for BoD. It may never happen, though - and that's okay. But I'd love to write for comics or graphics novels in general- which might be hard without experience, so I found an artist and we're putting together an online graphic novel that will go live in the spring. (Free, of course - but we're having a blast with it, and we're both getting a good learning experience out of it, and that's all that matters.) Yes - I'm plugging myself here, but that's okay. The site isn't officially up, but we've got a few sketches up at our SSD tumblr. More to come as we progress.

I'd love to write for RPG games. I entered a writing contest for a popular gaming company - which might not get me anything. But it might also get my writing seen by the head writers over there. Do I expect a job out of it? No - but it's a chance to leap over the slush pile and that's all I want. For now. ;-)

I'd love to write children's books. (Seriously, I've got book half-written in my head about a Pangolin and his Violin. I should probably put it down on paper just to make it go away.)

I guess what I'm getting at is that for me, I want to do more than write novels. Will any of these things happen? Maybe. Maybe not.

But what it comes down to is that I don't want to just dream.

I want to do.