I know it’s theme week again here at Genreality because I’m struggling to put together this post. This is the fifth sixth seventh draft I’ve written, and if I don’t nail it this time, I think I’m going to have to resort to sock puppets or card tricks.
What is it about themes that kills my desire to write? I’d love to know. Sasha has to be tired of seeing all these different drafts pop up on the Posts board. I have to quit behaving like I’m going to break out in hives every time I try to do a group activity. I can play nicely with others. As long as they don’t try to tell me what to do. Or hand me a bunch of rules. Or say I can’t do it my way–
Okay, okay. I’m going to do it this time. I swear.
At what moment did writing for you turn from being just a hobby to play around in to something you took seriously enough to create a salable novel, and a resulting career?
I think it’s the question. And that word: hobby. Like Sasha, writing was never my hobby. For the last thirty-five years in varying degrees it’s been a dream, an obsession, an addiction, a compulsion, a life-changing, soul-wrenching test of strength and endurance and patience. It’s also proven to be remarkably effective psychotherapy, a travel agent that charged nothing for the most amazing guilt-free trips I’ve ever taken, and the exercise yard that permitted me to bring my demons and run them around until they were utterly exhausted. Toss in a couple of kitchen sinks, a cryptograph machine and a large mountain range of obstacles, and you get the general idea of what it means to me.
But a hobby? God, no. Hobbies are nice, fun things you do when you have a little time on your hands and you want to play. Not this.
Then there was the moment in question, the day I made the decision to seriously pursue publication. It was November 7th, 1989. I can retype the fifteen hundred words I wrote to describe what happened to me on that day, but I don’t want to. It was pretty awful. So was that draft. It made me sniffle, remembering. I don’t want to make you cry. Let’s skip that part.
That leaves us with what convinced me (which isn’t actually part of the question, but it’s implied by the phrasing.) Nothing did. Everyone and everything, including the odds, were against it. In retrospect I didn’t have a single damn good reason to pursue a professional writing career. Except the one that ties in with that awful day story, and then I have to get into that nightmare again, and we really don’t want to go there unless everyone brings a box of tissues, their favorite wubby and maybe some chocolate-covered Valium.
I need about four hundred more words to make this a proper post. Let’s see. I could tell you some funny anecdotes about my family and what they thought of my brilliant idea to become a professional writer. Only I tried a draft of that, too and it turned out not so funny. In fact, I think I’m going to call a few of my family members tonight and remind them of some of the snotty things they said to me when I really could have used their support.
Or I could drop a few jewels o’ wisdom, like that stupid one about how when a door closes a window opens, or that we have to accept the things that we cannot change. You know, any decent collection of self-help quotations will give you all you need in that department. You don’t need to hear that nonsense from me. I don’t believe it anymore, why should you?
So, want to see a picture of the spider nesting in my oak tree? Her web is really cool:
I’m going to try to duplicate the web on the next crazy quilt I work on. Spiders and their webs are traditional embellishments for crazy quilts, dating back to Victorian times, when . . . okay, yes, I’m trying to distract you from that question by making this about quilting. But you have to admit, it’s more interesting and far less stressful that having me sob all over you, right?
The truth is that I don’t like looking back in this particular direction. Too much heartbreak and hardship and harrowing moments happened at the beginning of this voyage. I honestly think surviving it was mostly dumb luck and blind determination. I was never a proud captain sailing some beautiful writing ship into the sunset. I was more like the clueless idiot on a leaky raft who rowed and bailed, rowed and bailed. I didn’t know any better. And instead of getting better as time went by, it got worse. I prefer not to think about that too much. It makes me want to quit doing this, and you can’t let anything get between you and the work, not even bad memories.
Also, certain things have to be experienced firsthand before they can be wholly understood and respected, and I think pursuing publication is one of them. It’s different for all of us, too — I know a few writers who have had joyful, lucrative, memorable careers from day one. And then there are writers who have thicker skins or simply don’t let it get to them. I wish I’d met a few more of those back in the day.
Other writers’ delightful anecdotes and success stories don’t make me envious. They give me hope. I only wish it could be like that for every writer.
The question that inspired this rendition of theme week is a good one, and I apologize for not producing much of an answer. As much as I think it’s a good thing to share experiences with other writers, the answer isn’t something I can give you like a writing method or a motivational insight. This one I think you have to find out for yourself.
