The most difficult thing to me is the speed that the stories cascade across the screen in my mind in juxtaposition to the glacial pace they can be placed on the page by way of my fingers. What is the speed of a dream?

I’ve tried the voice to text tools and they’re far better these days than they were before, but there’s something to me about sitting in front of the blank page and tapping away at a set of keys. It feels right. The tactile nature of transferring a story from one medium to another. It can be soothing, it can be evocative, it can be infuriating. It happens at a faster pace from time to time. Sometimes I catch inspiration and the words just flow. The problem of course is that inspiration is fleeting and the stories I have to tell want… need, to be much longer than a few hundred words spilled onto a page in a moment when the images are willing to flow.

If the dream like state could be maintained then the words and the works would be created so much more quickly. There are those who believe the artist must, based on the maintenance of that dream like state, take measures to ensure the dreams don’t leave. It’s a fallacy, and worse, detrimental to the truth of the story one has to tell. IF one is the creator of the story than it should be a true creation, not one based in and biased by whatever concoction or substance the author consumed in desperation to grasp the dream.

Perhaps that’s the key. It’s not a dream, or if it is, it’s a dream that belongs to others. The creator is simply the channel and the words and the works are designed to be fleeting. The creations dash forward and away, in search of the place where they may take up space for all the others meant to experience them.

It’s whimsical to sit and ponder these things and more so to believe I have any insight into these things. I am peeking through the keyhole, glancing into the partially opened door in hopes that the light spilling out will work toward a greater success for those passing by in the darkness. Folly on a good day.

Working toward becoming the conduit for these misty visions and half formed myths isn’t easy. The words rarely match the clouded view, out of focus but evoking such strong emotions. How do you match the speed of a dream?

Someday. Eventually.