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Send in the Clown

by

Paul Clark

I fully intended to fill this space this week with another glimpse at a book from my shelves. But this morning, in that hazy time between first awakening and when I actually got out of bed, I had a quick dream that crystallized how I write.

To be blunt, I have a hard time writing. It’s not for lack of ability—it’s for lack of discipline. Deadlines are a good thing because without them, all my words would stay in my brain. If I was God, Moses would have spent most of his 40 years in the desert waiting on Mt. Sinai as I dithered in heaven over the Ten Commandments—which commandment should go first, how many there should be, which font I should use on the tablets, etc.

I have a long list of things I would rather do than write—not just frivolous things like getting clean towels out of the dryer or refilling my coffee cup—but important things like, well, reading. Writing always ends up on the bottom of my list of things to do, just above looking at my checkbook and cleaning the cat box. This is too bad because I get immense pleasure at the moment when I realize an essay or a story is done and ready to be sent out to the world.

I rarely describe myself as a writer to other people because I have taken to heart the wise words found in many a writing book—writers write. Innumerable published authors have noted that even if they knew they would never publish another book, they would still write because they just had to.

As to me, well, I’ve lived almost half a century as a literate person who tries to avoid writing. As the deadline for this week’s essay loomed, I swooned. I knew which book was the subject of my essay. I had the advantage of extra reading time this week, because I had been called to jury duty and so brought my book to court. I took copious notes—it’s a big book—and started framing the essay in my head.

Then it was Saturday night, and all I had were notes, a vague outline, and an empty Word document on my screen. I went to bed. Come morning, rather than get up at the usual time, I turned over and dozed and dreamed.

As a digression, I do not like when authors describe dreams in stories. I read a lot of mysteries and I hate dreams in mysteries because usually they are used to foreshadow a clue or a criminal. I don’t like dreams in literary fiction because, in my experience, they are used so authors can work on their issues regarding symbolism. More often than not, if a dream pops up in something I’m reading, I skip it, usually at no sacrifice to the rest of the story.

I don’t like long paragraphs of italics in novels, either, but that’s a separate issue.

In my dream this morning, I was clown in a circus on a stage. It wasn’t a famous circus; in fact all the performers were amateurs. Although I didn’t recognize anyone else in the dream, I got the sense that all the performers—and we ranged in age from teenager to senior citizen—were people from my community. (Of course I didn’t recognize anyone; we were all in clown make-up.)

We were performing several shows. In the first part of the dream I was already on stage. I don’t remember the content of the sketch I was performing. Then the time shifted to another day, and I was arriving early at the theatre to get ready for the next show. The show was being staged at an old building, probably a school. I had a couple of hours to kill before it started, so I walked around back stage, not really doing anything, but not getting in costume either. At one point I came across the program for the show which listed my initials next to a couple of acts. I don’t remember what I was supposed to be doing onstage, just that my name was in the program.

Then I realized that I could hear the ringmaster on stage announcing the beginning of the show—and I still hadn’t started getting ready. I raced to the locker room—we didn’t have a real dressing room but changed in the equivalent of a high school locker room. It was a dim and dank room with sundry items of men’s and women’s street clothes scattered about. I realized I didn’t know which locker was mine or where my costume was. I frantically opened locker after locker, grabbing whatever pieces of suitable clothing I could find.

As my dream faded to true wakefulness, my dream self realized one more thing—even if I could put together a costume and rush on stage, I didn’t have time to put on clown make-up. I would be just myself on stage regardless of what I was wearing.

Even though I have a couch near my writing spot in the living room, I’m not interested in laying down and waiting to hear someone’s learned opinion on this dream. The message is clear—I need clown make-up on to write.

Seriously though, I recognize that writing is NOT only the physical act of getting words on a page. Writers are always working—taking everything they have ever read and everyone they have ever met and every experience they have ever had or ever wanted to have, and placing it all in a tiny clown car. Then writers drive it around and around the center ring until the car stops and surprise after surprise tumbles out of the car and onto the page.

Me? Well, sometimes I just like driving the clown car too much to stop and get out.


Paul Clark is a writer in suburban Chicago. By day he edits a variety of print and online business and legal publications. By night, he sometimes writes for pleasure, though he keeps these writings under a bushel, and the bushel he keeps in a dark shed outdoors. Paul co-wrote a humor column called “Loose Canons” for the late, lamented Readerville Journal. He recently purged the majority of his books from his shelves. Over a series of essays, he will write about the books that remain and why they are important to him. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 
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