Posts Tagged Family

Motivation (By Debbi Redpath Ohi at InkyGirl)

There’s this thing that happens to almost every writer I know.

It’s the inevitable confrontation with the person who thinks that writing should be an easy job or that you should get a different, better paying “real” job.

In my case, it’s my mom who calls with the prospective jobs and/or entrepreneurial opportunities that, if I actually took them, I would 1. End up broke and living off of her again; 2. End Up Miserable; 3. (likely as a result of #2) End Up Fired; or 4. End up locked in a rubber room somewhere because I don’t have time to write and writing keeps me sane.

I don’t resent this. My mom means well, and generally, she’s an awesome person and I wish I could be as awesome as she is.  But see . . . I have this “making ends meet” day job that is awesome for several reasons, namely:

1. My Boss Is Awesome.
2. My Boss is willing to deal with my (often quite severe) social anxiety problems. Said social anxiety problems have been a significant handicap in other jobs in the past, and I don’t particularly want to give up a job where they are not an issue. Because when they are an issue, it tends to lead to a pink slip.
3. As long as I get my work done, I am allowed to write in my spare time. Said writing occasionally leads to me making other money, doing the thing I consider my actual, you know, career.

The other person who will drive me crazy is my grandfather, who knows that I have a small handful of completed novels but can’t seem to understand why I’m not already raking in the big bucks.

“You’ve finished that novel? Why haven’t you made it into a book yet?”

I try to explain the process, that a completed novel doesn’t necessarily equate a novel ready for publication.  The finished novel still must be polished.  Then it must be sent to beta readers.  Then it must be polished again, with a finer grain of sand, perhaps, like a rock in a polisher.  Each time, it becomes shinier and more beautiful, but only once you’ve gotten it as shiny as you possibly can will you send it in to be set into a piece of jewelery.

And of course, at that point, it takes luck and perseverance.  You have to find an agent willing to take you on. That agent then has to find you a publisher.

But it is not instant, or easy.

It’s not just writers that come across this.  It seems to happen to all people who pursue a creative career, sometimes even after they have found success. I know at least one fairly successful artist friend who complains that her father is constantly after her to seek out a job designing art for advertisements. A “real” job.

Even those who are the most supportive of our creative careers can’t seem to wrap their mind around one particular thing:

Not Doing it is Not An Option.

I write because I can’t not write.  When I’m not writing, I become even less functional as a human being, which speaking for my usual state of “functional” is really saying something.  Writing quiets the little people who like to run around playing havoc in my brain so that I can concentrate a little better.  Writing makes the faerie on my shoulder shut the hell up.  Use whatever metaphor you want to use, but the simple fact of the matter is: I can’t not write if I want to continue to be.  And writing fiction as a career is all I’ve ever wanted to do and all I will ever want to do.

Everything else is just a paycheck, and if the paycheck can come from a source that can understand or at least put up with my personal brand of insanity, then I’m sure as hell not going to give that blessing up.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” –Albert Camus

I’ve only seen snow twice in my life.

The first time, a winter storm had hit the southeast. It was a bad enough storm that even as far south as we live, there was a thick carpet of snow on the ground.  The power was out for more than a week, with the only warmth in the house provided by a little-used wood stove.  I played outside in the snow during the warmer hours of the day and built the first and only snowman of my life. My mom and I pulled the sofa and chairs up close to the fire and spent the week curled up under blankets,  making s’mores and drinking hot chocolate.

The second snowfall I saw was on a vacation to the Smoky Mountains over the Thanksgiving holiday.  It would be the last such vacation my extended family would take together. My grandmother would be in a nursing home by spring, in the Alzheimer’s ward. Already, she didn’t always remember our names.

We were on our way home when the snow started falling, and as we drove with all of the care of those completely new to icy roads, it began to build up on the trees and the edges of the road like cotton blown from a truck headed to the gin.  We stopped at Lookout Mountain and stepped out into a world entirely foreign to anything we’d seen before. The snow drifts were deep enough to sink our boots into, the trees covered in snow and ice had taken on a crystalline appearance.  We stopped and wondered and took photographs of this strange world, and then we went home to our green fields.

My winters have never been defined by snow and ice, as such things were rare curiosities rather than the rule.  Instead, it is warmth that defines my winters. Compared to the sticky, miserable heat of our summers, the warmth that comes with winter is inviting and welcoming: cuddling under blankets on the couch; crackling of fireplaces that aren’t all that necessary but are nevertheless beautiful; the scent of wonderful food drifting from the kitchens. The warmth of family.

It seems a common thing among my fellow bordering-on-thirty or thirty-something female friends.  Family events, coming across an old acquaintance somewhere, etc. are met with dread, not because they do not wish to see these people, but because of the questions.

Because it never fails that, within the first few moments of reunion, they will be asked: “Are you married yet?” or “Any marriage plans in your future?” or “When do you think you’ll be getting married?”

It really is as if the general thought is that the only thing there is for a woman to do once she has finished her schooling  is to find a husband.  Because we all know that women of around 25-30 years old want nothing more than to get married and start popping babies out.

This is such an archaic and chauvinistic point of view that it rather infuriates me.  It’s as if, the moment you get done with college, there’s an expiration date set into your forehead, and if you get too near 30 without having secured that husband, you’re about to go sour.

What about being responsible?  Making sure that you’re able to support a family, deal with the stress of a marriage (much less the stress of being a parent)?  This entire point of view seems to ignore the fact that the general trend these days is toward marrying later, having children even later.  That these marriages, where the people involved have settled into their adulthood and accepted their responsibilities and firmly provided for their future tend to be more successful?

The fact that I have been in a long-term relationship with a wonderful man and that we still, after 12 years, are not married, seems to really bother people.  Somehow it doesn’t seem to compute that we can be happy and not be married.  That I, as a woman, can be happy not having had a full compliment of kids already.

Folks, there’s life out there to be lived before I want to have to deal with the stresses and responsibilities and financial burdens inherent in having a family.  Things I want to do and see and be.

I’m sure there are as many reasons that women are waiting longer now as there are women to wait, but there is no expiration date, even the biological clock these days seems to run slower and slower.  Give us our time and know that when or if we’re ready, that’s when it’ll be.  Until then, stop asking. We’ll tell you, if you need to know.

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I’ve been to Atlanta twice in one month…that’s got to be a record for me. I’m a pretty devoted homebody and country girl. Both trips were pretty exhausting, but fun. First DragonCon, then a friend’s wedding this last weekend.

The wedding was at the Inn at Serenbe, a green community outside Atlanta. The community itself is very neat, and I’m all for encouraging environmentalism. The restaurants have a sort of from-field-to-table philosophy, taking local produce grown organically on Serenbe farms, and as a result, the food is some of the most delicious I’ve ever had, and the simplest. When you’ve got good ingredients going in, they don’t require a lot of extra work to make them taste good.

It was a little funny, though, coming from the family farm to a development that was clearly built to look old and rustic. Makes you wonder at what odd things city people will pay for, when we’ve got the exact same thing down here without any effort at all.

But maybe I’m being a bit too practical about the whole thing. It was one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever been to, and we had a lot of fun touring the Serenbe community and just generally relaxing. It would be nice to go up again sometime, on a weekend where it’s not going to be so busy, and hike the nature trails and just sit and be lazy.

The funniest thing that happened all weekend, though, was being followed to Atlanta by a giant fiberglass triceratops. Haven’t got the picture uploaded yet, but we kept seeing this fellow pulling a triceratops all the way up to Atlanta. Not really something you see going down the interstate on your average day.