Dreams and regrets

Jul 22, 2013

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There’s a box of old dreams in the kitchen just now. They’re tattered, with some pieces missing, mouse chewed and musty. And I feel older and more pathetic every time I walk past them.

They’re manuscripts I wrote years and years ago.

I’ve got an envelope that goes with them.

The first one is dated 1994. The last 1999. Old me was pretty persistent, I’ll give her that. And then some other things came along, like a career, and a child, and home education, and house moves and career changes, miscarriages and more children.

Through all the moves the box travelled with us. It’s lived longer than it should have done in garages. I don’t know whether all the pages for the story I’m most attached to are actually there any more. From the contents of the rejection slips, there should be a hard copy somewhere about – it could be in a completely different box though.

I don’t know if the writing is any good. I’m guessing not, given the rejection slips. If I can find the beginning, I’d like to read it through and give it one more go. One more rewrite, one more round of submissions.

Why? Because, if I don’t I run out of dreams. All I have left are regrets.

I know I still have the children, and the home education, the fledgling business, the blog. But none of those are my dreams. Children are dreams in and of themselves, their future is their own, you can’t live vicariously through them. It’s that old roots and wings thing – you have to set them free. A business is a good thing to have, but it’s not going to affect people’s hearts and lives and somewhere in me, there’s always been that wish to do that. My blog doesn’t quite hit it (which scares me that maybe I don’t have what it takes, maybe my writing really isn’t that good, maybe I’m destined to just stack up rejection letters (emails? Do people even submit hard copy any more?) ) and anyway, it’s not stories.

I want to tell stories. I want to weave magic, create worlds, change lives and make people wonder.

Is that so very much to ask?

What are your dreams – will you share them with me?

Dreams and regrets It’s where it is

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Comments

22 responses to “Dreams and regrets”

Mummygadgetgeek
22 July 2013
My dream is to design and build my own house. At the moment it doesn’t seem likely. But I’ll keep on dreaming, and hoping…
The world of publishing has changed a bit since the advent of ebooks. Perhaps you could self publish and see what happens? I’d love to give your book a read!
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 July 2013
  I might end up going down that route, goodness knows it’s worked well for Karamina 😉 But I suppose there would always be that sneaky suspicion that it meant I just wasn’t quite good enough to do it the old fashioned way. Got to find the rest of it first though!
  Reply
Liz
22 July 2013
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Literature is so objective – to me Stephen king is the bomb my husband finds his work unreadable !
Don’t second guess yourself, best thing to do is do it. Do it now
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 July 2013
  The box is in. I’m going to give it a go. If the first pages aren’t there, I’m going to write something else.
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This Mummy
22 July 2013
This is such a lovely post Jax. I hope all goes well and good on you for giving it another go.
I know exactly what you mean about work not quite cutting it, I have my business and its great but I just don’t get the same sort of satisfaction I get through writing. It sounds silly but when I get feedback on my blog that a recipe, a craft idea or an article has helped someone I find it really satisfying. At the moment through blogging I feel like I am quenching a desire to be creative that I’ve suppressed for a long while.
I’d definitely look at self publishing if the traditional route doesn’t throw up any opportunities, have faith in yourself and go for it.
Laurenne (formerly L @ Blog of a Mom – had a rebrand if you didn’t recognise me!) x
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 July 2013
  I didn’t recognise you, no! Thanks for understanding and commenting.
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Kirsty
22 July 2013
I think you definitely have to follow your dreams Jax. Go for it. Make it something you enjoy and is just for you, maybe go and do some creative writing groups or retreats? I think you’d be really good at maybe running some yourself 🙂 Other avenues to realise the dream?
btw, love the new blog look 🙂
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 July 2013
  Thanks Kirsty. When there’s no small dependent offspring I’m definitely going to go on a writing retreat.
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Jaydubblah
22 July 2013
You got further than me. My novel has never seen the light of day although the manuscript is sitting on my PC
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1. Jax Blunt
  22 July 2013
  I think I’ve submitted others. I’ve had some poetry published, some even paid for.
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thelastslayer
22 July 2013
You’re already ahead of me by the fact you’ve written things! Don’t give up. I know EXACTLY what you mean about if you don’t have your dream then you only have regrets. Maybe a shift in perspective will help? After all, you don’t have to be traditionally published to be able to create and write. Maybe there are other, new ways in which you can share your stories with the world?
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Leoarna
22 July 2013
I had a conversation with a long retired primary teacher today, and a few hours later, the content of it led to my having mapped out yet another book in my head. My guess is, that like me, you’re not short of ideas, just time. Since I listed to the literary agent at Britmums – five weeks ago? – I have found one morning to get on with the revisions to my synopsis and first chapter he suggested. Tolerating this life-sized clash is a challenge on a scale that I’m not sure even the Dalai Lama could internally sort out.
And yet, when you’re lying on your deathbed, what will you wished you had done. Yep, thought so. Me too. 15 minutes every other day? (Back to that buddy idea we had, too) x
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Looking for Blue Sky
22 July 2013
It’s one of the things that worries me: I have no dreams right now, but perhaps now I’m starting to feel better I can think about what my dreams could be – glad you still have yours xx
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NinnyNoodleNoo
22 July 2013
I think it can be a time thing – like you say, other things come along and dreams tend to be pushed back a little (one of the reasons I admire Kirsty and her family for selling up and actually *doing* something).
Maybe, in the past, the time just wasn’t quite right and now something is shifting inside you and pushing these dreams to the fore?
I dream of quitting pretty much everything and moving somewhere out of the way and pottering around in peace in a lovely self-build little house – that will take some doing bearing in mind our financial situation, but I still hold onto it, after all, my life has changed so very much over recent years – and, well, maybe it’s a dream that has to wait a little, until the children are older and are off doing their own things – who knows?
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Janet Edwards
23 July 2013
Find just an hour or two a week, and give your dreams another try. In Sept 2007 I started a two hour a week adult education class. There was a goal and a time limit in the back of my head. Get a short story accepted, somewhere, anywhere, within five years. I’d have been delighted just to achieve that. I’m still dazed by what actually happened.
No need for regrets. You’re already much further on with your dream than I was in 2007, and there are lots of possible options these days.
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Alex
23 July 2013
When I read posts like this, I immediately think of one of my favourite Pink Floyd songs, Time. The lyrics go like this:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.
It’s a wonderfully melancholy song and seems to sum up life, especially life with kids, perfectly. The minutes drag but the years fly past and there seems to be so little time or energy to do things for oneself.
John Mellancamp put it more succinctly in the Ballad of Jack & Diane:
“Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone”
Perhaps it’s the heat and lack of sleep but I think of all the things I wanted to achieve when I was little, and so few of them have come to fruition. Perhaps they don’t for anyone, perhaps this is it and I should focus more on enjoying what I have than what I thought I wanted. I love my kids and my wife, they genuinely are my life and I enjoy spending time with them but I know that the book I started in the summer of 1995 will never get finished, or the other 3 planned out wont get written.
Heck, my writing blog, http://www.iamcurrentlywriting.co.uk hasn’t been updated since December 2010, which is deeply depressing.
Whenever I have some spare time, I don’t have the energy to use it productively, which then frustrates me even more :/
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Courtney – Maui Jungalow
24 July 2013
Don’t give up! Darkest before dawn. And grab and read a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. You will see yourself in there.
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Mrs Teepot
31 July 2013
Go for it! Your writing is wonderful, chase those dreams huni.
My dream is to be happily married and have children. It doesn’t look like either will happen for me, at least not soon, but I’m still clinging on to my dream.
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1. Jax Blunt
  31 July 2013
  Thank you.
  I hope you get the chance to try.
  Reply
Babes about Town
21 October 2013
Just coming across this post via Clare’s guest post. Like Liz said above, don’t be so hard on yourself! First off, pat yourself on the back for even completing a manuscript — many never get that far! I’ve got my first (unpublished) novel somewhere desperately in need of re-editing and possibly resubmitting almost 10 years after writing… but I’m prouder than anything of having written it in the first place!
Have you shared it with writers’ groups? There are so many out there where you can get constructive and kind feedback. Also if you’re thinking of retreats, I recommend Urban Writers who do one-day retreats in London and also longer ones in Devon.
Best thing is to keep writing, explore all the options and if this one doesn’t pan out, write another one! That’s my plan anyway 🙂
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1. Jax Blunt
  21 October 2013
  thanks. I’d love to go on a retreat, I’m thinking that when Tigerboy weans, that might be my independence treat for myself.
  Reply