Do you fantasize about being a best-selling author? If so, what form does your daydreaming take? Are you being interviewed by a famous talk-show host? Receiving a call from someone in Hollywood who wants to turn your story into a movie? Throwing a huge book launch party? Swimming through money in your mansion’s vault?
Today’s ramblings are about whether your Walter Mitty-type flights of fancy are helpful or harmful.
First of all, I think such dreaming is normal. It’s typical when a person embarks on any new endeavor. It’s natural to wonder, “What if I turn out to be really, really good at this?” My guess is that everyone considers this question whether they’re throwing a football, playing a piano, or writing a story. After all, someone has to be the world’s greatest, and maybe it could be you.
Further, some experts see the practice of visualizing future success as useful, even necessary. Sports trainers often urge players to imagine succeeding on the field or court. However, I believe the focus of such training is on actual moves or plays while engaged in the sport; the players are not encouraged to dream about lofting trophies high in the air while confetti rains down.
If you’re a beginning writer who envisions instantly skyrocketing to the New York Times bestseller list, it’s important to understand that such stratospheric success is a low-probability thing. The overwhelming majority of authors get nowhere near that.
However, I’ll be the first to admit that such literary victories, however rare, are possible. In my view, though, if you do become a famous writer, it won’t be because you daydreamed about it first.
Here’s my list of ways you can know if your dreams of success have become harmful to you as a writer:
- The fantasies take time away from writing.
- You begin to see your visions as the measure of your success.
- Fame or fortune becomes your sole goal, rather than becoming the best writer you can, or creating the best stories you can.
- You become disappointed or frustrated when you can’t achieve the exact scene foretold in your dreams.
- The dreams become a fixation, a dominant part of your life.
On the positive side, here’s my list of ways you’ll know that such dreaming is okay, or even helpful:
- Your flights of fancy are occasional.
- You see your daydreams as motivational and inspiring.
- After your visualizations, you feel like writing.
- You understand that your visions represent unlikely events, and you regard them as fanciful, innocent fun.
When the glittering fame and fortune of your imagination collides with the dreary reality of long, solitary hours spent writing followed by numerous initial rejections, it’s important that you learn certain things:
1. You can enjoy writing for its own sake. The goal is a well-crafted story, not any accolades that might ensue.
2. Two of the prime factors determining whether you’ll be a well-known author are skill and luck. You can work to improve your skill. You can’t control luck.
So dream your dreams, novice writer, but keep a bit of perspective about the whole endeavor. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to try on my tux and practice my acceptance speech for the big award dinner. Or perhaps that’s all in the mind of—
Poseidon’s Scribe