Reading a book is, often, a magical or even a life-changing, cathartic experience. Writing, I believe, can be even more powerful than reading when perceived as an act of projecting a dream.
In October 2021, my debut novelBunky and the Walms: The Christmas Storyentered the literary world. Yet, even before October 2021, I had been constantly preoccupied with different types ofwriting projects, starting from academic works, ending on short stories, poetry, and fiction. While for many individuals writing has a therapeutic effect and serves as a tool allowing one to reminiscent on and make peace with the past, I also regard writing as a tool for restructuring reality and materialising one’s dreams.
I deeply believe that we have a magical ability of inviting dreams into our life through the act of conscious and determined writing. Writing is more powerful and liberating than one might suppose. It definitely does not end on a piece of paper, but starts from there, reaching innumerable possibilities in our physical world. It takes a leap of faith to believe in the power of writing. It takes an immense leap of faith to believe in the power ofyour writing, but every special thing inyour生活需要一个巨大的努力为了into a gratifying experience.
I feel that writing is an immensely responsible task, since textual thoughts we produce and textual worlds we create unavoidably turn into the substance of our world. We don’t think about it that often, do we? I have no doubt that this world is not a mere physical entity, for there are thoughts which powerfully and meaningfully link us to each other and to every path and object in our life. We call it ‘cognition’, but why shouldn’t we call it ‘magic’? Isn’t the process of turning invisible and intangible entities (thoughts, dreams) into physical ones a pure miracle?
Without the ability to formulate thoughts, our reality and the world would be random and meaningless. Then again, without writing, a powerful thought wouldn’t be encapsulated in an equally powerful sentence eventually leading to the realisation of a dream. Hence, I believe that our thoughts and writing can turn us into good wizards of our life. The world and words are magical for those who believe so.
A dream often sustains us and keeps us alive. You might be waking up to a dream each and every single day and you might be living a dream or living for a dream. Yet, do you believe in your dream? For the dream is not located in some remote part of the galaxy at which you are gazing from a distance. I started writing my novel in 2019. It was autumn and I was surrounding myself with the magical world of my beloved literary characters. Then, 2020 arrived and shattered the world as we know it. I decided that it was the very time for a literary escape: not only would I spend long hours writing and sheltering myself in the literary world, but also I gradually started exploring the power of writing which sustained me in the most difficult moments. Apart from writing my novel, I have been writing a diary since I was four years old. In 2020, I decided to start from there and created a set of written statements concerning my goals and dreams. I wrote: ‘In the future, this is how it will look like – this is how I want it to be and this is how it will be.’
I kept writing and re-reading what I wrote every single day, until the point when it became my truth. And it was valid, it was real, for it was on paper, that is – in our physical world. I wrote down everything about my future as an integral part of my story. Additionally, I illustrated my dreams, and they became vivid and more powerful. I continued the writing process while submerging myself in my novel,Bunky and the Walms, creating the world of adventures and fantasy which, at the same time, would be safe and inviting, filled with the best friends one could possibly imagine and the safest, happiest places on could possibly hope to visit. In truth, I was restaging my physical world by means of writing. I was creating the future, believing in every word of my tale. I was creating the world which I wanted to see in our reality and which I hoped to offer my readers as well – especially those readers who longed forsafety and happinessin a complex everyday reality.
‘And actually what is real and what is not – every dream can be a kind of reality,’ eagerly states my protagonist Bunky while explaining to his cousin Rodney that he fell in love with his own literary character, the Bunky Princess. I wholeheartedly agree with my precious Bunky – every dream can be “a kind of reality” as long as we believe so. In this physical world of innumerable possibilities, it is this huge leap of faith that is needed to create the best possible world for oneself and the loved ones.
Since the day I started restructuring my world by means of the written word, dreams have been gradually coming true: one of them was the publication ofBunky and the Walms. Not all of them came true, but several dreams have already entered my physical world and several others are in the process of becoming real. My feeling is that these dreams have been merely shifted from an intangible realm of my consciousness into the physical sphere – after all, I had created them a while before!Importantly, another vital ingredient in the process of materializing one’s dreams is hard work. Some Readers might say that, after all, it was hard work in the first place that led to the realisation of the dream. Yet, I deeply believe that materializing dreams through a powerful writing is an exceedingly vital ingredient on the pathway towards one’s goal.
Invoking dreams by means of the written word can be likened to having a nutritious meal before all the difficult work that needs to be done. We need spiritual ‘food’ in order to thrive in the universe woven from a thought. There will be moments of temporary sadness and defeat, but a dream and the written word will sustain you through everything. From a blank page to a fulfilling reality.
Aleksandra Tryniecka, PhDis an assistant professor at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland.
