You know the way you sound like an angel when you sing in the shower? Every note, every nuance comes out perfectly in a brilliant wall of sound?
You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if anyone was home to hear you they'd fall to their knees in awe at your talent?
If you had access to sound equipment you'd probably have it rigged up in the bathroom, poised to record every amazing performance. Maybe you'd even send it off to studio or a radio station. In fact, with pipes like yours you're pretty sure it is only a matter of time until you are discovered. The only question is will you be the next Elvis, John Lennon, or Pavarotti?
Unfortunately, it doesn't take long before you come to know the sad reality. Unless you really are Adele or Michael Buble or Measha Brueggergosman , you probably sound like a dying cat when you really let loose. Most of us learn that lesson early...and hard.
Unfortunately, for the pathetic few, the dream lingers on. Despite all the evidence to the contrary we live with a tiny fragment of hope that the beautiful noise we hear inside our heads is exactly what everyone else is listening to.
It's the same thing with writing. I just finished a short story that I thought was interesting and insightful. It was supposed to be an homage to Arthur C. Clarke. I started with a great idea, but the more I wrote, the more off-track I got and the farther the story strayed from my original premise. No worries, I thought to myself - it still sounds great. A little spit here and a little polish there and it will fit right in with 'Time's Arrow' or 'The Star'.
It was as though I was trying to pull off the impossibly high note in
the aria, Queen of the Night, from Mozart's The Magic Flute, and for one
fantastical moment, I thought I sounded like a nightingale.
Sadly, I was wrong. My story stunk. No matter how much soap I took to it, no matter how hard I tried to scrub it into some semblance of Arthur C. Clark-ian brilliance, my story still sucked. Like a bad imitation of 'Rolling in the Deep', the only suitable ending for my disastrous attempt was a quick and unmemorable trip down the drain.
Dream on, baby. Short story writing is way harder than it looks.
