“Chasing Rainbows” is a phrase that describes someone who’s going after a dream that’s impractical and foolish. The phrase has often been used to describe writers who have unrealistic expectations of how well they can write and what they are worth. “He thinks he’s Hemingway, but he’s never published anything before. He’s just chasing rainbows.” “Can’t believe she thinks she’s going to make $100,000 off of her first book, she’s just chasing rainbows.”
No one can catch a rainbow, right?
We’ve all known writers who had unrealistic expectations. By “unrealistic” I mean that they expect to make millions of dollars on an uncompleted project or believe that they’re famous and everyone knows who they are — even though they’ve only written one short story for a free magazine. We’ve laughed at them, we’ve made snarky comments privately, and we’ve all rolled our eyes at them — up until one of them does “make” it. Then we wonder how the heck that happened. Was it luck? Fate? What?
