Writing Again??
I know this is a recurring theme for me, but let me explain. I keep getting this message about how you can’t sit in 2 chairs at the same time: if you’re good at two things, you can only really excel at one.
More or less, I had decided that it would be web design, my business that is, and NOT writing. I keep praying about it, but lately I’ve been reading some AMAZING fiction and I thought well, that is it, that’s my role, to be a reader not a writer. But when I reading this fantastic stuff, it’s like a tide that pulls me under and makes me want to write, write, write.
But I still stand back in fear of it, and time is a pressing issue too. How can I justify hiring a babysitter for writing? Can I justify a sitter for a workshop, a writing course, a degree in professional writing? I need a sitter so that I can make money at what I do now (my web design business) to make money for the sitter that I also need to write and study writing.. augh!!!!
More time went by and a friend asked me to proofread her business e-book. I am SO good at this. I was doing it, and then realized that I should get paid doing it, and that I was getting high off of editing her book. REALLY. Which brought back the idea of writing professionally, fiction and otherwise, again, and of course my characters having been waking from their dead sleeps to nag me as well.
OK, I should do it but for now I’m stilll focusing on my business.
Do I even want to????? I’m no longer sure. I am absolutely terrified that I suck as a writer.
Cut to Sunday, we started attending a new church with an amazing band and a pastor nearly as amazing as our old one, and I felt uplifted but I know I can’t sing and that childhood dream is dead (as it should be).
But I can WRITE. I can do that praising God thingy with my awesome plug and play poetry. OK, that sounds conceited but “plug and play” really isn’t - I just sit and let God fill me with the words.
Which leads me to: what next?
Option 1: keep working, ignore my writing.
Option 2: stop working, do my writing
Option 3: take a workshop, somewhere, ANYWHERE, finish degree in writing, or at least start process of that and keep working
Option 4: find a way to work with lots of outsourcing, target degree, get some experience, start picking up my characters.
Option 5 (the winner): Follow God on this whole thing.
Finally, I had a dream the other day that I went to London. As a kid, I had always wanted to go and finally in adulthood saved up and went - it didn’t live up my expectations at all. In this dream, I was returning to London, wiser, older, not alone (don’t ask me who with - I didn’t appear to have a family in this dream). I was terrified that it would suck as much as the first time. I came out of the metro, emerging at an odd time and -
Woke up. The dream means this: do what you want, and make it what you want. And writing and London were so tied up together that I know it was a clue, an indication for me to get back to what I was put on this earth to do.
I think that if you have Writers Spirit, it’s virtually impossible to not write. You can stop, but it builds inside like…well, the image that comes most immediately to mind is rather disgusting. Oh, I know! Steam in a volcano. Eventually, it has to blow.
But sometimes you cannot devote full-time attention to writing, especially as a mom. So you keep writing a little, just enough to keep yourself sane until you have more time. Tillie Olsen wrote a book about that dilemma called Silences, about how women and the working class who try to create art have big gaps in their career, during which life got in the way.
Of course, you probably never get to the skill level you might have if you’d been able to work steadily your entire adulthood. And the production certainly drops.
For myself, I’ve been wandering around for 20 years since college graduation–”working” (not building a career) and raising a family. Exactly as Tillie Olsen said. I’m OK with my choices and immensely grateful that I finally have the time to devote to it (though now I struggle with making what has been my hobby all these years into the highest priority, at least during working hours; I feel guilty!). And fortunately writing really is something you can set aside and pick up later (as opposed to, say, ballet dancing).
I’m no help here, am I? But I can certainly commiserate .
Oh, no, Katrina, you are a big help! I feel less alone, less like I’m struggling on my own, and less like a failure.
Feeling like a failure is one of my biggest faults!
I know that a solution is to get into a workshop. That type of commitment has always been fairly easy to fit in (as long as I can afford it) and ANY type of workshop encourages all my writing.
I’m shocked you feel guilty- you have found the time. But yes, you can pick it up after time. I will endeavor to do better to commit to my own needs even while I work on that tough stuff (ie, parenting, being a good wife, etc). I don’t envision anyone being able to walk on my floors without their feet sticking anytime soon, though, lol…
Oh, and what I do on this blog I don’t consider true writing. It’s pretty much mental diarrhea, no thought to perfect, spell check, edit.
Nothing wrong with mental diarrhea, honey! It helps let some of the steam off.
I came back because I read a blog entry I just HAD to share with you: http://tessgerritsen.com/blog/2007/05/15/the-creepy-facts-of-life/
This is a commencement address given by bestselling author Tess Gerritsen. Look especially at “Creepy Fact #4: Things that look dead really can come back to life.” I swear, she posted this just for you and me.
I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I want to change my comment. I’m not just “OK” with my choices: I’m very proud of them, and grateful for them.
I may not have the production I could have, but you know what? My writing has a depth and a richness, a wisdom, if you will, that it would not have had if I’d spent the last 22 years locking in my garret writing instead of raising children, having miscarriages, getting into and out of an abusive marriage, running a newspaper, teaching high school, wrassling calves, etc.
My “silences” were times of sowing. Now is the time to reap.
Katrina, that was great, in so many ways. I didn’t know this about Sally Ride, my favorite astronaut. (Uh, I loved physics too but was too stupid to handle it when I went back to school for it, lol).
What is weird is that TODAY I found out that I didn’t get the job I applied for (and oddly enough passed through 2 levels to get). I’ve been in holding pattern personally and professionally waiting for this news, so this is good to find out. Time for the next chapter.
It’s been a long desire for me to finish my BA, and I can go back to the school where I have the most credits and study Professional Writing online. This includes a selection of lit courses, which I’m psyched about (I’m still averaging 2-4 books a month, might as well make them COUNT!)
I have to see how this pans out but Gerritsen’s speech was JUST what I need to hear. Thank you!!