A Writer in the Woods
In September 2023, I went to the PNWA Writer’s Conference in Seattle and sat at a table with a group of strangers. We came up with the most ridiculous idea we could think of, laughing ourselves silly. But what started as a joke stayed with us, and when we reunited at the same conference a year later we decided to turn our idea into a reality. For the last six months I’ve been working with these three incredible writers on developing a middle-grade animated TV series based on our idea. We’re scattered along the west coast, and have been meeting over Zoom, hammering out character and plot details in 2-hour increments. And now we’re meeting in person, retreating to the woods outside Seattle, to write our pilot episode over the course of three days.
It’s going to be a big weekend, and we’ve set a tall order for ourselves—writing an entire episode in one weekend. Our goal is to refine the draft quickly once we’re all back home, and have it ready to submit to the Austin Film Festival Script Competition by the end of April. The Festival isn’t until October, and we won’t know until September if we’ve advanced in the competition. Even entering the competition is a feather in our cap and will hopefully help us sell the idea to potential producers.
I’m not giving further details about the show just yet! We’re still in early stages and I don’t want to inadvertently mess anything up for us by publicizing something too early. What’s most exciting to me, at this stage, is going on this retreat with other writers to work on a project that we’re all really excited about. The momentum is incredible. It feels like the beginning of something important.
Free-Write:
Free-writes are short scenes that come out of a short stint of writing time on a program called FlowState, which deletes everything I’ve written if I stop writing. I go into them blind, can’t stop to think while I write, and don’t edit them before they’re posted here beyond correcting any typos or punctuation. Basically: I don’t know what this is about, either!
15-Minute Free-Write: I Dreamed We Were Lovers
Once, I dreamed we were lovers. We lay entwined, like Adonis and Aphrodite, our skin slick with sweat and golden in the fading afternoon light. You twisted against me, our bodies as lithe as snakes, our hands and tongues criss-crossing each other’s skin like paint brushes. We presented a gorgeous canvas, bright with passion and eternal in its perfection.
When I woke up, my body was thrumming with energy, and I clutched at my bedsheets in desperation, willing my desire to fade into nothingness, into the same black as the night which still lay heavy upon the room. The street outside was silent, not a single car passing by en route to an early flight at the airport or coming home from a graveyard shift. Silent in a way I had never heard, an hour too dull and empty for me to have ever bothered encountering it, even in my wildest youthful nights. I lay there, and your face swam above me, flung back in ecstasy, eyes clenched shut and mouth parted. I couldn’t remove the image from my mind. It was engraved, it was printed in permanent ink, it was carved like initials on a tree trunk, like the initials you’d carved into the oak tree at the park our senior year of high school. Those weren’t my initials, either. I never wanted them to be.
Still, the dream had come. It lingered in the dark, as if my mind wasn’t quite aware I’d woken up yet. As if I might fall right back into that dream, where all the ash you spat at me had turned to honey. Where my fingers were curled into the fabric of your T-shirt, instead of scratching into your back. Where our tongues were silver instead of lead.
Once, I dreamed. Now you stand there, screaming my name, and it’s nothing like I dreamed. It isn’t a cry of rapture, it isn’t an exhalation of release, it isn’t a sweet nothing whispered in my ear. Your hands are reaching for me, but not to cradle me close, not to caress the sweat from my skin, not tangle sweetly in my hair. Your eyes catch me, but not with love, nor lust, nor endearment.
I never longed for you, not before I dreamed nor after. You were never the lover I desired, never the friend I wished I could have. Our relationship, as persistent and painful and strange as it might seem to others, has always been exactly what I needed it to be. You were a fixture in my life, a source of tension and drama that I could rely upon to excise my frustration. You were pompous and demanding and cruel, exactly the type of person I thought I would never need to know anything more of. You were friends with my friends, enemies with my enemies, an unavoidable object in my orbit, but never a satelite I imagined worth contacting. I suppose I was much the same to you. Cruel and merciless. Always there and never lingering. The foil to your heroic tale. Who can say, in the end, whether you or I was the villain?
Perhaps we both were, in our turns.
Now you’re there, and this moment is frozen. Your voice screams my name, trembling with terror. Your hands reach for me in desperation, too late. Your eyes catch me with longing, not enough to change what is about to happen. We pause for a moment, you and I, in this culmination of our chase, and I think of that dream, and for the first time in my life, I wonder. I desire. I yearn.
And then I fall.
Book Review
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
Absolutely Masterful.
This book has been on my To Read list for far too long, but it was perhaps the ideal time for me to read it. I expect part of the reason this book doesn't have a higher rating on Goodreads is because people read it either too early or too late. This is a book not just about dreams, but about the precise moment when you either give up on a dream entirely or choose to throw all caution to the wind and go for it. If you read The Alchemist too early (either before you've discovered what the true ‘dream of your soul’ is, or when you're still too young to have considered giving up on that dream) or too late (after you've already given up), then it won't resonate with you. It may not even make sense to you. This is a book you should buy early, and it should sit on your shelf, catching your eye from time to time, until the day you wonder if, maybe, you should give up. Then you should take The Alchemist off the shelf, sit down with the beverage of your choice, and read.
The main character is called Santiago, but his name is only ever used on the first page of the book. From then on, he is nameless, a boy caught up in the pursuit of his dream, as most of the characters are. Every element of this book is symbolic, and every twist and turn along the journey serves a purpose. Coelho understands the challenges of having a dream and striving for it. He never panders or softens the blows. He insists that this journey is difficult, and at times it will feel impossible, but each step along the way is key.
** CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD **
The ending truly brings all the ideas that are percolating throughout the book together. It turns out that the boy was literally sitting on top of his treasure at the very beginning, when he had the dream. He could have found it without selling his sheep, traveling to Morocco, working in a crystal shop, crossing the desert, saving the oasis, or being beaten up by bandits. But if he hadn't, he wouldn't have understood the value of his dream. He wouldn't have learned to speak the language of the world. He wouldn't have met Fatima. Our journeys are just as important as our "Personal Legends."
Overall, I think this book is incredibly powerful in the right hands at the right moment.
