Last night I dreamed that Madonna called me to chat. (That’s Madonna the rock star, not Madonna, the Virgin Mary.) I was so shocked that I could barely speak to her. She wanted to know how my novel was coming along. My dream mind was shouting, “THIS IS YOUR BIG BREAK!” But I was so stunned that I could barely describe to her what the book was about. “I need to look at my notes,” I kept telling her lamely. I was so disappointed in myself when I woke up — I had blown the pitch, as they say in Hollywood.
So now I’m attempting to do a little dream interpretation. Maybe Madonna represents the pinnacle of self-induced fame, at least as it’s defined by our culture. Her phone call to me was like a hand extending down from celebrity heaven, but I wasn’t ready. I froze, jelly headed.
I’m struggling with my novel now — I thought I’d have the first draft finished by Christmas but my writing has been flat and rushed. I need to slow down, breathe into it. Why am I doing this, I keep asking myself. Is it fame I’m really after? God, I hope not, but then why was Madonna, of all people, calling me in my dreams?
This week in the New York Times, there was an interview with writer Herta Muller, who just won the Nobel Prize in Literature. She said, “I am now nothing better and I’m nothing worse. It’s O.K., it’s nice, but it won’t change anything for me. My inner thing is writing. That I can hold on to.” That’s where I need to be — writing for writing’s sake, not for what it could do for me. Not because if I sell my book I could get a swimming pool. Maybe writing, art, any creative endeavor, is something akin to love — you can’t love a person solely for what he or she can do for you. That isn’t love. That’s just capitalism.