Driving Thelma & Louise style into new writing genres
"Dreams take on many tones, I've learnt. The deepest ones have a feralness to them."
I have unrealised dreams in my hand like a bundle of unopened letters from an old love.
In the bath I stare at the ceiling and contemplate them. Feel how daunting they are. How their shape in my mouth doesn't feel comforting or cosy, but uneasy. When I used to think of dreams I always imagined them to be light and dreamy; but the thought of really looking at them stirs some deep-rooted anxiety. As I mull over whether I should open them, my teeth grind in my skull. A bad habit that brings with it no fun (and I firmly believe bad habits should bring fun).
The dream: to leap into different genres with gusto.
To taste: memoir, essay, fiction, and more.
To gift myself: the time to experiment, to discover my true voice.
The freedom to experiment shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to announce, and then to do; but I settled down into a stylistic tone, a way of doing things, before I ever had a chance to really experiment. I think the root of the problem is sort of a creative youth. I was so green. I never truly gave myself the freedom to push edges. Push back. Rev the engine. Take off down unknown roads with nothing but a pang for more. I found something that worked and I stayed. Until I didn’t.
Being who I am, being what I am. A writer. An artist. Eventually, there was going to be a chasm. A fracture through the centre, a crack right down the middle. The floor beneath me was always going to collapse and destruct. It has, it did. Over the past year I've been in the dust, the rubble. Cuts on my palms, splotches of blood from dead and gone perceptions of myself. Today, I sport the feral grin of a woman who understands destruction precedes creation, and she's made it to the other side.
Dreams take on many tones, I've learnt. The deepest ones have a feralness to them. A grit. They are often laced with want and fear simultaneously. They're reckless, in a way. Pursuing them feels reckless. But that's what I know I want – to be reckless in pursuit of my dreams. To write with something like Thelma and Louise abandon. Petrol engined off the side of a cliff into death and heaven.
To grow in restraints is to never quite go wild. Never really super bloom. My violent and glittering longing to experiment in genre, in style, in form, leaves orbs of white in my vision. And so, in all of my time away from being online, that’s what I’ve been doing. What an artist should do. Experimenting. Venturing out into the unknown. Dying in the mess.
Terrifying, yes, but I've reconciled with the fact that dreams most often are. Like telling someone you think this is something. Something more than the something you thought it could be. It’s when an easy fling starts looking like it has legs of forever. When knowing you’ve found it, burns. It's a very particular fear – the fear of getting everything you want. What do you do, when it’s all yours?
What I know from looking love in the eyes is that it's never nice. For me, at least. I writhe like some snared animal. Hands wrenching away from connection like it's a trap. I suffer, brood, plan my escape. When I’ve almost decided to cave and love, I resist, even as I want to surrender. I resist even as I want to smash myself up like a dried violet and ask them to eat it. To look at them tortured in feeling. In grief, in home, in flutter. Say yes and it’s you and it’s you and let’s. The resistance of love and dreams look identical. They feel the same. Something you desperately want brings with it pangs of fear. That’s where I am. When I consider my dreams, the fear is so thick I could slice it like sourdough bread. And maybe I will.
Maybe I’ll slice it. Find some fleshy figs. Drizzle it in honey. And want. Scoff it down like I’ve never eaten. Pig out on my dreams in some low kitchen light, refrigerator held open by hips. I’ll swig wine. Murder bread. Gulp down aspirations. Wash it down. Go back for more. I’ll eat and eat and eat until all that’s left are crumbs. I’ll lick a finger, lick the counter. Get in my car. Drive until the sun and I become one thing. Find a canyon. Line it up. With honey in my hair, dreams in my pupils, courage in my teeth; I’ll hit the gas. Flinging myself into every new abyss, before me.
Like love, like bread, like freedom, like dreams.
I decide I’ll have them all.
Adore this Brooke. I think the thing about dreams is that the more we care about something, the easier it is to convince ourselves we’ll be terrible at it. There’s something about voicing a want aloud that gives power to it, the power to have it taken away. I think dreams are a bit like secrets this way.
Reading this was also a reminder of how the writers you idolize (and I do idolize you lovely) can have the same insecurities and creative challenges that you do. I love your words, love the visceral quality of how you write. When I first encountered them I thought “my gods, that’s a good writer, that’s someone who knows what they’re doing.” It can be easier to forget that the people we admire are just as human as we are, walking the same path of trying to find their voice and speak it true. Thank you for sharing your dreams and fears and human heart with us. Trying new paths can be scary, but it’s worth it and will only serve to make your writing even more you.
"Dreams take on many tones, I've learnt. The deepest ones have a feralness to them. A grit. They are often laced with want and fear simultaneously. They're reckless, in a way. Pursuing them feels reckless. But that's what I know I want – to be reckless in pursuit of my dreams. To write with something like Thelma and Louise abandon. Petrol engined off the side of a cliff into death and heaven."
Gods, THIS!!