all our hopes and dreams

Montrose beach, 16th January 2013. I've been seeing the sunrise more than usual recently - it's so much easier to catch it in the winter!

For more reasons than I can tell you I have been doing a lot of thinking about hopes and dreams of late (don't cringe, cynics, just stay with me... there is no life-coaching on the cards, I promise!). It's possible that I'm always thinking about hopes and dreams in some way or other... certainly I wrote a hopey-dreamy poem a few years back and put it in a prime position in my first poetry collection ("A dream is a song of hope"... you can read it here). That wasn't any kind of sensible poem to write then and nothing has changed in that regard. I mean, it rhymes... and that title... and I have publicly admitted (more than once...) that I wrote it after watching a Celebrity Big Brother final in 2006... well, none of this is "take your ticket for the T.S.Eliot prize" material. And it's not even that I live in some rainbows'n'unicorns kingdom either... despite the recent outbreak of sunrise photos on this blog. No, I have been quite cynical about the inspirational business too (see here)... but still, I think about hopes and futures a lot... I just can't help it (and not in relation to my own life particularly... or at any rate, less and less so). I think, for example, that every time I meet someone these days I am at least partly wondering (a) what their hopes and dreams were when they were younger, (b) how that has all worked out for them and (c) what they hope for and dream about now. I'm interested in lots of aspects of this subject... what has changed and what has not (in terms of general expectations and ideals, in terms of what is achievable), how things will continue to change, how much our hopes affect us. It's all linked in with mental health too (and that's always been a topic close to my heart...). Plus my Mum was always fascinated by other people and I suppose, now she is gone, that interest has passed to me more and more. I'm not saying I like all those other people all of course... some things are beyond idealism!

So what of it? I don't know really... I suppose I just wonder if you'd like to think about it with me... and to this end I have opened up another blog (oh no! oh yes! oh yes!) and it is to be a collaborative/contributor-led/no-one makes any money but it might be interesting kind of a thing... and I would like it to focus on hopes and dreams. Maybe you'd like to contribute?  If so all you have to do is email me a contribution (in any form... poem, prose, photo, song, story, notes...) to admin@crowd-pleasers.net

Contributions will be added each one in their own post... and here are some guidelines:

You can use your own name (full or shortened) or any kind of alias you like.

Contributions can be as personal or as impersonal as you like, as fictional or as non-fictional, as run-of-the-mill or as abstract as feels right to you. 

I will edit basic spelling errors (unless you really don't want me to). My punctuation's pretty... personal to me so I'll probably leave you yours too unless it just seems confusing. Like that sentence!

I will link to your blogs or sites if requested.

I reserve the right to not publish/post pieces that seem to me hateful or potentially harmful (there is quite enough hate online already...).

Remember that whilst specifics and details are interesting (yes, please to those) just going on and on for ages because it's the internet and space is unlimited can make for very dull reading (so no, thank-you to that).

I would really like this to be something lots of different people join in with too (not just those of us who think of ourselves as writers) so please, forward this blog/post to friends, family, workmates, anybody and everybody — the more contributions the more interesting the whole project will be.

All ages welcome... but if you are under 18 remember not to give too much of yourself away online! Once out you can't take it back...

If I get lots of contributions I will never post more than one person's set per day — it's best to take at least some time to consider them all carefully, don't you think?

I think this will be an interesting exercise in considering our lives and what they have been and will be and I hope you agree and join in. I hope you get others to join in too.  

If you have any trouble getting prompted here are some questions to set you off thinking...

1. What were your hopes and dreams when you were a child?

2. Did any of them come true in any sense?

3. What are your hopes and dreams now?

4. Do you really think any of them are possible?

See you, I hope, over there. There's no rush (no rush at all!) but at the same time... don't leave me on my own too long now will you? If there's no interest at all I'll just delete the blog... easily done.

ADDED LATER - first contribution is now up over there. First of many I hope.

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