TO TWILIGHT

Dear Readers,

Though I've never read Stephenie Meyer's book, Twilight, nor its three related sequels, my daughter, Monica, has. She's also seen the movie and is excitedly awaiting the pending release of the second movie. She's hooked. And she's in good company, as evidenced by 70 million copies that Stephenie's books have sold worldwide ... so far.

 

Recently, I watched Stephenie's intriguing interivew with Oprah Winfrey where she explained how the plot of Twilight was born. One morning, she awoke after having had an unusually vivid dream about a vampire boy and his "girl-next-door" love interest. The dream had been so lucid and so fascinating to Stephenie that she started writing it down. 

When Oprah asked Stephenie whether her process of writing the dream down was with the intent of turning it into a book, Stephenie explained that she had had no interest in publishing it. Her singular intent of writing was to document and therefore never forget this once-in-a-lifetime dream.

Another interesting point that Stephenie made was about her childhood. Growing up, she had a father who would read books to her. Not children's storybooks, but significant works of literature — like Pride and Prejudice and Gone With the Wind. And when her father would put the book down in the middle of the story to go to sleep, Stephenie found herself the next day flipping to where her father had left off so that she could finish reading the story. Much like her singular desire to capture the dream that would become Twilight, she was, during childhood, a girl with an intense determination to get to the bottom of stories.

Regardless of our respective fields, I'm sure that when we listen to Stephenie's story, we also long for the same type of experience — where an extraordinary dream could come to us so that we could turn it into a worldwide phenomenon. But I can't help but wonder ... is it the dream that comes first, or the preparation that comes through years of discipline and focus, that gets us ready to transform the dream into something spectacular? What if Stephenie had never been a reader of books? What if she had only been a skimmer? What if she had only been interested in get-rich-fast schemes? Would she have ever reached Twilight?

I doubt it.

I think the most important point about Stephenie's story is that she had lived a lifetime as an authentic and sincere lover of stories ... a "black belt reader," as Oprah described. Unbeknownst to her, Stephenie had prepared herself for the coming of the dream by reading, thinking, and getting ready to unleash her creativity. 

How about us? What is the "dream" that we seek in our quest to succeed? A shiny new blog? The latest and greatest line of paints and mediums? Enrollment in the newest online workshops? And if the dream we seek arrives, will we be able to meet it with the kind of authentic preparation that Stephenie had built throughout her lifetime as a reader and student of literature?

It's a new year. It's a new decade. Let us make a commitment to investing ourselves in the hard work of readying ourselves for a dream that may already be here — just waiting for our disciplined selves to take it all the way ...

To twilight,

Jenny

{This letter from The Editor-in-Chief was published in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Somerset Studio.}

Comments

[Sherri]

I've also not read the Twilight saga (my two daughters have)...but this post was so very inspiring. Thanks so much for sharing these thoughts...they're very motivating!

[Laura]

Discipline and hard work...not as easy for some as it is for others. I agree, that it is up to us to make our dreams come true.
Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying , planning and dreaming won't do it without the necessary hard work and taking disciplined , deliberate action.
Thanks for the reminder!
:) Laura

[Penny]

my daughter has read & re read & re read etc... The Twilight Saga so many times but I am SO delighted as she is very dyslexic & it's a joy to see her happily reading

[Ellen]

Thank you for the gentle reminder,
that we do need to let our dreams breath, but also allow them time to grow. Growing takes work and patience and a lot of effort!

I will share this post with my
13 yr old...another Twilight fan~

[linda]

Love this...sometimes it takes a bit of a reminder to realize that everything we do is in preparation for the next thing. No experience is a waste of time...it all shapes who we are!

[Colette]

I haven't read the books, but I'm fascinated by the author's story. I grew up much in the same way. My mother taught me to read before I went to kindergarden, and I read books like War and Peace and Balsac's novels. By the age of 10, my dream was to be an author and I was already scribbling my stories. I did become a writer eventually...

[Colette]

Eeep! That would be Balzac. Writers hate typos. Thank you!