Acts of Surrender 18: Dreams and Desires

An excerpt from Acts of Surrender: A Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress.

"I am Tikkan Dreamwalker. I speak only what you know in your heart to be true."
~ Na'an, The MoonQuest

I've written and spoken before about how I never wanted to be a writer, about how I so feared my creative abilities when I was growing up that I denied their existence, about how my Muse initiated an extensive program of chicanery to lure me to the write side.

Perhaps that's why so much of my teaching and coaching work, for writers and non-writers alike, has focused on surrender: to the story of life as much as to the story on the page...to a story that can be buried so deeply that it's invisible to the conscious mind.

That's how The MoonQuest was born. This fantasy about a world stripped of story, vision and imagination wasn't one I knowingly carried within me. It began to leak out onto the page one spring evening in 1994 during a Toronto writing class I was teaching. Within days, that trickle had exploded into a cascade. A year to the day later, I dropped the final period on the end of a first draft written so in-the-moment that I rarely knew, from one word to the next, where the story would take me.

It's been 17 years since that writing class, 17 years during which The MoonQuest has rarely not been part of my day in one way or another -- years of drafts and dreams, years of publisher pitches and agent queries, years of staring up to the full and moon and asking, When?

I'd be lying if I claimed that I've always believed in The MoonQuest as fully as it's always believed in me. Of course, the rejections from publishers and agents didn't help. But a small part of me didn't quite buy the post-publication praise, either.

I think many of us carry a small, frightened child within us who is convinced that our talents and abilities are little more than a carefully constructed sham. "One day," he or she warns repeatedly, "they'll discover the truth that you're a fraud, that the emperor has no clothes."

A lot of us mocked Sally Field in 1985, when she gave her Oscar speech for her Norma Rae best-actress win. "You like me. You really like me!" she exclaimed to the bejeweled crowd at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and to viewers around the world. Yet our mockery was edgily uncomfortable because, like Sally Field, most of us -- despite our unique talents and incomparable gifts -- don't fully believe in ourselves and don't altogether believe those who do believe in us.

I had a whole series of Sally Field moments this past weekend, during the first two full days of shooting on The Q'ntana Trilogy preview film here in Albuquerque. (The Q'ntana Trilogy is the trio of fantasy novels and feature films kicked off by The MoonQuest. The preview is a short film comprising scenes from The MoonQuest, The StarQuest and The SunQuest and is designed to attract investment to the features.)

Suddenly, here I was on a professional film set for the first time and everyone present -- from production assistants to producer and from featured extra to featured players -- was there because of me...because of my words and my vision. For large chunks of the two 12-hour on-set days, my mind couldn't begin to grasp the magnitude of that. I would hear my dialogue spoken by actors in costume and in character and not connect the experience with the words I had penned and the scenes I had envisioned.

In part, that was a good thing. It afforded me an ego-free objectivity that allowed me to see what worked and what didn't. For the most part, though, it felt as though I was strangely not present, even though my physical body was consuming large quantities of sweetened coffee to keep me awake and functioning after a week's anxious sleeplessness.

(In one of life's strange ironies, the last time I had that much caffeine was the night my daughter was born. How perfect that the ritual should repeat itself during another birthing!)

There were flashes, of course...moments when I did connect what I was seeing and hearing with what I had written and imagined. Those moments were indescribable validations of the power of my dreams and imagination, a power that I realized I still didn't fully trust.

I'd experienced similar moments during our casting calls and rehearsals, when actors had proven to my doubting mind that my dialogue worked and my stories were sound. I had even cried during particularly powerful readings of my lines.

But here, with re-creations of my characters interacting in re-creations of my worlds, the proof was incontrovertible. I was gratified, stunned...and scared. Like a Sally Field surprised by the depth of her gifts, I didn't quite know what to do with that proof. And like a Sally Field startled by the praise of her peers, I didn't quite know what to do when, at the end of each shooting day, actors thanked me for my stories and for the privilege of playing my characters.

It's a funny thing about dreams. There are the dreams we know about and the ones, as I wrote in the opening paragraphs, that lie so deeply buried that, when they emerge, they astound and frighten us with the intensity of their power.

If first writing and then novel-writing were hidden dreams for me, so, too, it turns out, was screenwriting.

Against all odds and despite what I thought I knew about my desires and capabilities, I'm a screenwriter. And a good one, at that.

In the end, though, I don't think it has anything at all do with the form of the writing because, in the end, I'm not sure that my dream is about writing at all. I think it's about storytelling.

If that's true, how perfect is it that, after years of creative doubts and blocks, my inaugural novel and screenplay should take place in a mythical land where stories are banned and storytellers put to death. How perfect is it that first through the writing and now the filming of this story, I am coming to believe more fully in myself, my vision and my talent and to see and understand my value and the value of my dreams.

Just as I cried the moment I held an advance copy of the published MoonQuest book in 2007, so I cried when the the 2nd AC clicked her clapper in front of the camera and announced, "Scene 10, Take 1. Marker." It was Saturday morning, the first take of the first scene to be shot.

I cried not because of the movie, any more than I had cried because of the book, as profoundly grateful as I am and was for both. Rather, I cried the cry of storytellers everywhere when they are privileged to see and experience their stories come to life, whatever the medium. I cried the cry of dreamers everywhere in witness to their dreams being made manifest. I cried the cry of surrender -- to all that I desire, in spite of my blindness, and to all that I am, in spite of my fears.

Photo credits: #1 - My hand as a close-up stand-in for that of Old Toshar, played by Michael Davis. #3 - Me and producer Kathleen Messmer, by Lu Jackson. #5 - Director Darryl Garcia, Jr. and Director of Photography Daniel Zollinger.

Adapted from Acts of Surrender: A Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. Please share as you feel called to. But please, also, include a link back to this post.

Recent Acts of Surrender excerpts:
• October 20
• October 23
• October 29
• November 15


While we're profoundly grateful for all the financial contributions we received in support of this no-budget project through our IndieGoGo campaign, we're not out of the woods yet.

We have an incredibly talented professional cast and crew, all working for free. We've been blessed with many in-kind loans and donations -- of costumes, paint, props, graphic design and food. And I continue to be amazed by the creative ingenuity and generosity of spirit that are fueling this project.

At the same time, some necessities must be purchased and certain expenses (production insurance, for example) are unavoidable. As a result, we're continuing our fundraising efforts past the end of the IndieGoGo campaign and we're grateful for any support you can give us. Unless you tell us otherwise, we'll acknowledge all donations (by name, not amount), even those as low as one dollar, on the Anvil Springs Facebook page.

To contribute, via PayPal or credit card, please visit the donations page on the Anvil Springs Entertainment website. You'll find more information on the project on The Q'ntana Trilogy page there.

Thanks for your support...and for helping to make this fantasy a reality!