Born of Fire

Here at the DreamAnvil, we believe that dreams are born in the fires of our passion, forged by our desires and tempered by our skill. This is the motto of the site and something I chose intentionally. Each phrase signifies a part of the dreamer’s journey. This month we are looking at that slogan and parsing out its meaning.

What makes you tick? I think if you have an exact answer to that question you are probably already well on your way towards achieving your dreams. There is something deeply internal about our dreams, something that is close and personal and sometimes scary. What do our dreams say about us? What does it mean when we say Dreams are born in the fire of our passion?

Passion. The word has very many qualities in common with our dreams. For instance, it can mean a barely contained emotion or an intense desire or enthusiasm. Perhaps this is why many of us feel inspired to achieve our dreams when we are in love? Passion, creativity, and dream-making are all intertwined. There is something primal about our dreams, something unrestrained and unfettered and raw. Our dreams do not care about feasibility or what others think, at least not initially. When we first encounter the spark that ignites our dreams we don’t care about much else aside from finding a way to accomplish it. Our passions, our yearnings are the driving force behind that.

I didn’t start writing because I thought I would be good at it. I took it up because I had a desire to tell stories. To share my vision of the world with those around me. I had written scripts for movies, and plays, and comic books, and even done my fair share of trying to produce some of those projects. But you know what? It’s hard to break into Broadway or Hollywood when you are in Ohio eating ramen noodles for meals. Yet my stories remained. My ideas never stopped. They remained trapped in my head and in my notebooks until my friends convinced me to write them down.

Our dreams don’t just flare up from out of nowhere. They come from a place deep inside of us that is still a child.

Books have always been an old friend mine. I have been an avid reader since I was old enough to actually, you know, read. It wasn’t too far of a stretch to imagine that I could tell a good tale on paper. So I wrote and wrote and wrote, blindly groping for the structure and storytelling mechanics I had learned passively in my youth. I started learning all I could about writing fiction and about publishing. I wrote some more stories. I emailed agents. I tried the NaNoWriMo challenge. I wrote my first novel-length book and then another. I kept on writing because I found an outlet for my desire. Even if I never get something published, I desire to tell my stories, and I have that chance every time I sit down to start a new project.

Our dreams don’t just flare up from out of nowhere. They come from a place deep inside of us that is still a child. That place inside that is the core of who we are. Once our dreams are born we have to acknowledge them, we have to keep feeding them. We have to take action. Every single person you know is passionate about something. There is something out there that we want to see accomplished, some feat we aspire toward, some project we would like to complete, or a need in the community that we think should be met. It’s time to stop thinking someone else is going to do it for us. Its time to stand up and take your dreams in your hands and go after them. Take action and chase after the thing you are the most passionate about.

This series was originally posted in March of 2016