Confessions of a Pessimist Dreamer

by Rebecca P. Minor

 

As I sought to boil down the most succinct description of my artistic persona, I think I blundered into why I’m always feeling a little at odds with myself. I mean, “pessimist dreamer?” What IS that?

Maybe there are more of us out there than just me. Since the internet loves self-diagnosis, let’s make a hypothetical profile of one of these odd creatures.

  1. Every idea you have grows at a rate that rivals a thirteen-year-old boy. While you go about your day, sitting in the car line at school, power cycling your modem, and checking Facebook for comments on your orange tabby photos, that little story idea that you thought up this morning has expanded like Great Stuff into a tetralogy with awesome movie potential. Because Chris Evans would make a spot-on high elf warrior…
  2. But before a word of that tetralogy hits the page, you’ve also come up with 14 reasons why you don’t have the chops to write it and how you’ll never amount to anything as a writer, because have you read anything about the book market lately? Will people even still READ by the time you get this thing done?
  3. While you’re berating yourself about your general hackishness, you drive by the perfect piece of commercial real estate where you could house your little writers’ cafe and donut shop called Plot Holes. You can envision just where the little outdoor couches will go and where the counter…
  4. But you don’t even know how to make donuts. In fact, when you bake without a box mix, the result is something better suited for loading a slingshot than eating. And aren’t you going gluten free anyway?
  5. So you need to do something with your life that has an actual return-on-investment. Be normal for a minute, would you? It’s perfectly acceptable to provide a needed service to other normals, doing things like running a register at Kohl’s or maybe even going back to that corporate job you left to be with your kids more and pursue your creativity.
  6. But … cubicles. Fluorescent lighting. Viruses. Your gypsy soul has no hope of long term survival behind faux stone walls!

And so it goes. You’re a pin- pong match of self-contradictions. But your mind is always moving. And if one of the dreamer sides of the chimera that makes up your persona gets passionate enough, she manages to speak up and tell the pessimist to do her real job: keep you from taking some kind of really stupid risk.

This being a confessions blog, I’ll have to come clean and admit that pretty much all the above profile items have some basis in my actual life. But even though I often lament that Eeyore is my spirit animal, I have come to terms with the reality that the pessimist at least manages to help me weed through the 23 ideas I have per day and forces me to pursue only the ones that have me by the throat and won’t let go.

So maybe I won’t ever launch a Classical Christian school with a robust focus on the visual and performing arts. Or invent a special mesh bag for putting your cat in when he needs a bath but is a master of stretching his legs to the side ledges of the tub. But for now, there will be a growing writers conference, a truck and trailer full of books headed to fantasy and sci-fi cons, and maybe, just maybe, some novels of my own to put in that trailer someday.

 

About the Author:

Becky Minor lives by the continual mantra, “If you’re going to be a geek, go all out.” From serving as Drum Major of the junior high and high school marching bands, to founding the University of the Arts Gaming Society, to establishing Realm Makers, her pattern of bringing geeks together has a long history.

Besides directing the Realm Makers Conference with her husband Scott and amazing committee of volunteers, Becky occasionally writes fantasy novels of the sword and sorcery variety. Her serial fiction, Divine Summons, is currently available on Amazon, as well as a couple of short works set in the same story world. Her remaining five completed novels are currently seeking publication homes, either with traditional publishing houses or as further self-published works.

Becky makes her day-to-day living as a freelance artist, currently focusing on sequential art (which is a fancy term for comics and graphic novels.) No matter what the vehicle, though, she has a passion for the storytelling arts.

The Minor family makes their home about an hour outside Philadelphia, PA, where foam sword fights on a trampoline are just part of a normal Saturday afternoon. You can connect with Becky on FacebookTwitter, and RebeccaPMinor.com

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