I think writing is dreaming. It’s the reason I write fantasy novels. I dream of other worlds and possibilities I can’t live in real life. And writing from another character means we get to live other lives. Make different choices without suffering the consequences or the fear in reality. It’s the reason I really want to write a novel set in a university. My own university experiences didn’t play out the way I dreamed they would: echoic halls, like minds, enjoyable deep reading and general Oxford-esque academia vibes. So, in writing, I get to live that life in another way, through another person. What a gift?
I’ve gone back and forth on whether I am a “writer” or not. A writer sounds like someone with the power to use words well. I’m not sure I have that power. But I do love stories. I love characters. I love minds and choices and beliefs and emotions. I love other worlds and cultures and societies. I love people and how they interact and connect. I love asking why and what if. I love being contemplative and reflective. Writing is simply a tool I use to explore all these things. I am a storyteller.
Stories are so much more than plot. In my opinion, the worst stories are just plots. Just things that happen. Instead, a good story is rife with emotion. It makes you feel something deeply, whether it’s joy or fear or sadness or jealousy. A good story brings you into the world. It invites you to befriend or to hate a character. A good story pulls and pulls and doesn’t let go.
Writing is creation, maybe this is why I don’t feel the strong pull of motherhood. I am already a mother. A mother of hundreds of characters I created from my mind and my soul. It takes a lot of energy to create like this, but when I do, I feel the most alive.
In the writing community, we talk about being a plotter or a pantser (discovery writer). Someone who organises and plans, or someone who makes it up as they go along. But I don’t think it matters. It ruins the writing process to subscribe to one or the other. To decide what type of writer you are in any capacity. Yes, know yourself and best practices for your work, but writing is creativity. It should be fluid at the end of the day. There needs to be space for dreaming. There needs to be space for adaptation, flexibility, fluidity and letting things unfold naturally. Each story, each character, may require something different from you and we have to allow for that.
Writing becomes difficult when you are pulled into reality. When it no longer comes from the soul or the depths of your being and starts being about rules, gatekeepers, marketability, format, “shoulds”, and expectations. Writing is dreaming. Writing is creation. Writing is a conversation with the universe. Writing is how we decide what we feel about a topic. Writing only becomes a thing with limitations and restrictions when we allow fear into the driving seat or try to sell our work. Before then, the act of putting words onto a page without a care for how it is received is the most beautiful and sacred thing there is to experience.
At least for me.
I want to dream more this year. I don’t tend to sleep well, so this idea is twofold, but I want to slip into this space of dreaming. Believing in the ever so slightly possible. Playing with form. Allowing and inviting, instead of shunning and perfecting. Gentle, soft, yin practice. Passionate thirst for the fluidity of flow and my mind-to-keyboard connection being so tight that I just bleed onto the page. 2024 is the year of dreams coming true, book deal or not, because I can create a dreamscape right here, right now.
Sincerely,
S. xx
S. R. Crawford 