The Dreams All Made Solid

I'd never given that much thought about why I wanted to write, or how I came to be a writer. If pushed for an answer, I'd go with "Because I'm good at it". But following Monday, my usual reply doesn't seem that satisfactory. I can only compare that day's lecture to the image on the right, a scene from Grant Morrison's anarchic sci-fi saga The Invisibles.

There, the main character encounters what he perceives to be Christ who compels him to ascend to new understanding, then return to Earth to put that knowledge to use. Seems like an appropriate metaphor.

The "Eureka!" moment for me would be reading Kim Newman's Anno Dracula, which depicts what would happen if Dracula had actually made it to England. It occurred to me that Newman hadn't left this "What if?" scenario as a daydream, and that this is what it means to be any kind of storyteller. Normally I'd just have an idle thought, like "Gee, what would it be like if we lived on Mars?" The writer in me, though, would start to speak up: "Well, for starters, time would be different; a Martian day is longer than one on Earth. We'd also have to terraform it to some degree to make it more hospitable. But what about those canyons that are so long, both ends only have either day or night? Could those ever be lived in?"

And the train of thought goes on like that. That is why I write - to take dreams and ideas (immaterial things) and make them as solid and material as I can.

 

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see are the dreams all made solid, are the dreams all made real. - Peter Gabriel