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.
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*hugs*
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Hugs are most welcome today. Thanks, Jess.
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Writing was never a ‘hobby’ for me, either, not even when I was just doing it for myself.
Writing was an obsession. I don’t give up sleep or meals for a hobby. I don’t lie awake pondering twists, turns, or issues for hobbies.
I’ll give up a little time for a hobby, as long as it’s fun, but writing isn’t a ‘fun’ thing, at least not all the time. Hobbies are something you play it. Writing for me was, and still is, an obsession and there’s very little playing involved.
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That’s the thing — I’ve had tons of hobbies over the years, and never felt an ounce of regret walking away from them to do something different. I couldn’t do that with writing. I think it would require psychic surgery.
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I never considered it a hobby, either. I wanted to be a writer from the time I was in grade school. No clue HOW, but I knew what I wanted. And I’ll stop with that thought or I’ll be there with you, eating handfuls of chocolate-covered valium and looking for my blankie. But you know, I’m still writing and I still don’t want to do anything else.
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Where are all the complaints about my lousy post? Lol.
I hear you, Charlene. And the older I get, the less I want to dwell in the pits of the past (or even the present.) I think the writing baggage has to be stowed away on a regular basis or it sours everything. Now to take that philosophy and actually live it . . .
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*G* Because a lot of writers feel the same way… *G*
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Actually, I find this post very encouraging. People who do everything perfectly the first time round and sail off blissfully into the sunset live in another unreachable realm. But to know that one can be a clueless idiot on a leaky raft, and row and bail, and row and bail, and still get somewhere, now that is heartening.
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Thanks, lxz. I’ll say one thing for the row-and-bail method — you tend not to sweat the small career squalls.
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Maybe you didn’t intend it, but your post is inspiring because it’s reality–at least it’s a lot like my reality.
Big thanks and big hug.
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Thanks, Darlene. I sometimes wonder if I should do what I’m good at, and make up a little fiction to gloss over the warts and wounds of career reality. Then I think of all the gloss I was doused with during my rookie year, and what a disservice that was.
We shouldn’t feel we have to perpetuate myths and lies to fit in with our colleagues and look good. But it’s equally as hard to tell the truth. No one likes to look at scars, not even the one who has them.
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Lynn, thanks for the post!
To all GenReality authors – this has been a great theme. Like has been said before, not only is it interesting to see how other writers got into the game of writing, it also gives us wanting to play a look at how it can be played.
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One reason I jumped at the chance to be a part of Genreality (a group, gasp!) was to be involved with such a diverse group of writers. We all bring something a little different to the conversation, even those of us who dodge the tough questions.
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I know you didn’t think your post answered the question, but I found it inspiring. I can’t imagine the pain you’ve gone through, but I do understand how the most innocent questions, unknowingly lead back to places you’d rather not revisit. Hugs.
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The life that I might have had before that day of decisions will never be mine, but I have been able to live part of it through my writing. To quote Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father, there is no great loss without some small gain.
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I still grouse about the smallness of the gain, though.
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Thanks for answering my question so honestly – I was looking more for the reality of it than the quips and cover ups anyways. (I suggested the theme a little while ago, I’m really happy you guys took up the challenge!) And I agree, this post was really inspiring, in a “you don’t need to just fall into it, but it does take work” kind of way.
I suppose I meant hobby as in something one does for themselves versus the pursuit for publication, not that it’s necessarily fun. Writing is a frustrating, rewarding, difficult, driving need, and I don’t think anyone serious about ever considers it equivalent to their fun collection of coins, heh.
Thank you very much, Lynn.
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I hope nothing I wrote was inappropriate or too reactionary, Paige, because I did like your question — I just hated my answers.
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…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.
Oh, thank God! Thank you! Every time I hear this, I get this nervous little tick under my left eye, and my fingers curl into claws. Possibly a neurological injury from bumping into walls in search of those open windows…
A dream, a passion, an obsession, an occasional point of despair, but never a hobby.
Thanks for sharing. Beautiful web.
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Don’t look at my response to Maripat’s comment, lol.
I do get tired of people saying “Look at the bright side” in an effort during dark times to make us automatically reach for optimism. Optimism can be annoying as hell sometimes. If I go through something that leaves me angry and sulky and makes me want to hide under my bed until I’m mistaken for an over-large dust bunny, then maybe I’m supposed to learn something from that, not the act of feeling fake gratitude that it wasn’t worse.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
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Lousy post? What lousy post? I didn’t read any lousy post! I saw hammers hitting nails and heard tuning forks reverberating truth.
Writing has never been a hobby for me, it is a driving obsession for which (I am convinced) there is no hope of a cure.
As to those open windows…I found one not long ago. And etched across the wavy glass were the words
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As to those open windows…I found one not long ago. And etched across the wavy glass were the words
You can’t end your comment with a cliff hanger, Nina! What were the words?
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Cliff hanger? What cliff hanger? (goes back to read post)
Ah. I see. I’ve been reading way too much Darkyn. See how you rub off on me, Lynn?
All right, for all who are a’wondering, let me go back to that window and see what be etched across the wavy glass. Oh, yes, there it is… Lynn Viehl
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Nina wins the internet today.
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Hmm… well, you’re gonna hate this, L.
I’ve always written fiction, – it’s never been an hobby – but get the stuff out there? I blame a certain Paperback Writer who hosted a writing competition in October one year.
You had to post your work somewhere for others to read and this certain writer would post a link.
Now, I have stuff out there; I consider myself a writer, though not through the traditional route – and I can only lay responsibility squarely at the feet of an inspiring writer who encourages newbies and whose life has not been easy but she never, ever, let’s us down.
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Time to go hide under the bed now.
Thanks, Jaye. You don’t know how much that means to me.
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I can’t say that writing was something that progressed from hobby to something more for me either. I was 14 (or maybe 13), spending a month of summer in CA with my grandparents, and I discovered two things then that started me on this long journey: my grandmother wrote mysteries and the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson. I discovered then that I wanted to be a writer. The next summer I got my first electric typewriter and I wrote 400 pages of an epic fantasy, without margins on both sides of the paper to conserve. The kicker in all of that: my grandmother was in a crit group in L.A. with children’s author Eve Bunting, and she gave me a brief crit of my first few pages. In sum, she said “you need work, but your writing has promise.” I was hooked. It took twenty more years before I finally got serious, and now I’ll have a book coming out. There were long stretches in there where I wrote nothing, but I always came back to it, and now it’s here to stay.
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The next summer I got my first electric typewriter and I wrote 400 pages of an epic fantasy, without margins on both sides of the paper to conserve.
At 13 I did almost the same thing with a historical romance — there were zero margins on mine. Mom would bring home these rolls of 8-1/2″ thermal accounting paper from her job, and I’d cut them into pages before I fed them into my secondhand manual typewriter.
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Lol, the glory days of old. Would do a lot of writers some good I expect if they had to write a book the old fashioned way (at least once).
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I’ve grumbled that a few times, usually prefaced with “Why, in my day, I had to walk two miles barefoot through the burning summer heat across scalding asphalt to the office supply store . . . “