A ‘Chick Singer’ Reflects on Dreams, Heartache and Renegotiation
By Lorraine Devon Wilke

It’s unusual to refer to someone as a friend whom you’ve never met, but I consider Lorraine a friend and a commiserator. We bonded on Twitter (aka X) when one of her posts articulated my exact sentiments. I realized that, aside from shared ‘initials’, we shared many of the same thoughts. It is my pleasure to introduce her to our Habitat2Art famiglia and friends. I hope she will become a frequent contributor. ~ Laura Wagner

It comes as a slow infusion of awareness. A dawning of sorts. A moment when something happens, words are spoken; an epiphany emerges, and suddenly you learn what was heretofore unknown. New elements of who you are, clearer ideas of what you’re meant to be, to do. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, identifying that dream, because now you’re driven to make it come true.

A girl whose name I don’t remember had turned around. She was in the descending row on the choir stand in front of me, and apparently I was singing directly into her ear. With an expression bearing some harmonic of surprise, she said, “You have a really good voice,” and I was equally surprised to hear those words. I sang loud and often, yes, but never before had any assessment of “really good” been assigned. That portentous comment opened my mind. I felt it, let it wash over me, recognizing the truth that singing not only transported me out of my everyday reality, but felt to be an honest, true talent.

And there it was. My designated dream. I was to be a singer.

It started with folk music, graduated to musicals, veered into singer/songwriter, but it was swiftly determined that I would set the world on fire as a rock & roll star. Not just a singer. Not just a rock & roller. No, I would be a “star.” It was fated. It was my destiny. Everyone in my orbit bolstered that belief, which was powerful, propulsive stuff.

The wild and wooly ‘80s became the launch pad. With the requisite big hair, ripped fishnets, belts and bangles, my band DEVON became an LA success story with incredible gigs, recordings, management, financiers, and fans; interest, excitement, and conviction followed, then came panic, despair, and, ultimately, the cold-water dip of having exhausted the decade of both time and opportunities with no shiny record deal to show for it.

Oh, dastardly, dogged dream …

I was gutted. Empty, lost, and heartbroken. It was not a matter of just moving on; every aspect of my identity was wrapped up in that persona, that expectation, that plan. I had no other plan, no contingency. Despite my father’s admonition to, “have something to fall back on,” I’d been so convinced of my dream’s fruition that “falling back” was a form of blasphemy. It would take hard grief, good therapy, and the love of excellent people to pull me out of the abyss.

But I did pull out. I survived. I recalibrated. I dipped into various other skills sets—acting, screenwriting, political opinionating, more music (though not of the “angling for stardom” kind, just … singing)—and began negotiating with my dream. Could I reinvent myself? Reconfigure, reimagine a path forward that felt authentic, real, and still offered some measure of my previous exhilaration? We haggled, my dream and I, and ultimately decided to keep music on a burner (if in the back), but let my photography and, particularly, my writing muses step forward.

I started a blog in 2010 when blogging was all the rage. Wrote for HuffPost for seven years. Got a fine art photography business going online. Then I started a novel. A novel. Crazy. Something I’d have never imagined doing prior. After the Sucker Punch published in 2014, followed in 2015 by Hysterical Love. In 2019, a small publishing company, She Writes Press, took on what would be my most controversial novel, The Alchemy of Noise, and in April of this year my fourth, Chick Singer, was released by Sibylline Press.

There’s something full circle about Chick Singer coming out at this particular moment. A moment when I’ve acknowledged, as the group I’ve intermittently sang with over the last few years struggles to find time to convene, that I do, indeed, miss being in an active, working band. One that plays enough to feed that part of me that rode my bike down the street belting out rock tunes. Writing Chick Singer (which is not my particular story but one I certainly understand) allowed me to excavate much of what I’d experienced in losing, and letting go of, that musical dream of mine. It dug into the emotional, even spiritual, journey of finding (clawing?) your way back to some version of yourself that’s healthy and resilient.

It was cathartic, in a way, writing that “chick singer’s” story. It reminded me that dreams are not intransigent, immovable. Despite the reality that what one imagines for their life doesn’t always evolve as planned, dreams have a way of adapting, adjusting, molding themselves into the you you ultimately become. Given my many years at it, I’m convinced they will doggedly stick with you until the end, though you may have to renegotiate from time to time.

But that’s not a bad thing. I’ve learned they are very amenable to that, dreams.

BIO: An accomplished writer in several genres, Lorraine Devon Wilke’s work includes stage and screenplays, articles, editorials, short stories, and novels. In 2010, she launched her “arts & politics” blog, Rock+Paper+Music, and in 2011 became a contributor to HuffPost and other online media, and currently has a popular Substack titled, “Musings of a Creative Loudmouth. Her essays have been reprinted and excerpted in academic tomes, nonfiction books, and literary journals. You’re just read about her novels; her fine art photography remains available online, as does her music, which she’s continued since her early days of rock & roll. www.lorrainedevonwilke.com