I'm getting a lot of fuel from some other blogs out there. Agent Nathan Bransford wrote a blog about how writers should not let themselves be defined by their writing.
Read it here
My friend Mary Walters comments
on her blog the Militant Writer
I want to share how important writing is to me.
I have been writing my whole life, poems, songs, short stories, mostly just for me. Even did a couple articles for the college paper and yearbook at my sister's urging. Never wrote a novel until I was thirty-three, in 2002.
From 1999 to 2002 I ran an in-home daycare. It was a lucrative business. I never had to advertise, all my business came from word of mouth. Living in a nice area, I had great families, and was able to charge fees that allowed me to earn a decent wage, and hire employees to improve my business.
Late in 2001 my mother-in-law was diagnosed with late stage cancer. My husband and I, not wanting her to go into a nursing home, closed the daycare and cared for her in our home with the help of hospice. This was March 2002. It was a full time job as not only did she need nurting and medication, but she also did not have the use of her tongue after her last stroke, so I was also in charge of tube feedings, along with Rusty's sister. I also stayed and talked with her (I talked, she wrote) and sang to her (her favorite was Eight Days a Week). She died 2 1/2 weeks later.
After arrangements had been made and the funeral was held, everyone went back to work and school and I was left alone and grieving, with nothing but time on my hands. That's when I began writing, to bide my time, to help me forget. What started out as a couple pages turned into a few, then many. Driven by mother-in-law and inspired by my children my first novel Dena Powers: Superhero? was born.
Does my writing define me? Not back then. I think the words mold and develop would be more appropriate, for I was just beginning to become the person I am now.
Today I am a writer. Am I now defined by my writing? I would say yes. For me, writing has always been very personal. I put every ounce of energy and emotion into it, so much that it drains me. Much of what I write is based on personal experiences, funny, desperate, tragic, joyous. This makes it very intimate, I could almost equate it to a love affair.
I think this is why so many of us take rejection so hard. We feel we've created something beautiful out of love and passion, and to have someone tell us "it's not good enough" is heartbreaking to say the least.
So for me, as trite as it may sound, writing IS like oxygen. It's something I need to get through, to survive. It's like love and therapy all wrapped up together. So, yes, since my writing comes from that deep, personal part of my being, it is defined by who I am, and I am in turn defined by it as well.
Beautifully expressed, Megan. I'm also deeply touched by the care you've shown for your family. Great post!
ReplyDeleteNot trite at all, Megan. Writing has been equally cathartic and oxygenetic for me as well.
ReplyDeletewe cared for my FIL for three months, and it is a draining, but deeply touching, process...
ReplyDeleteI feel the same when writing; totally overtaken. (good thing I do it NANO style, dumping out chunks withing 30 days or so) I always find the first few days I sleep like a log, when, theoretically, all I've been doing is sitting on my behind.
does it define me? not yet. will it? I don't know. maybe when youngest daughter is gone in a year's time. but I know that feeling of being so inundated by the work, the words, the meaning, the sense of I must get this out of my head!!
writing, for me, is a gift, pure and simple. been at it for ages in one from or another, but what I'm doing now is just so out of my hands in the sense of from where did all THIS come...
I don't know if gifts are essential to one's being. some are, maybe they all are, come to think of it. (my faith, my spouse, my kids...) those are intrinsic to me.
so then, writing must be too...
Megan, this is a great post. thank you so for sharing it!
All that you say is so true, BUT....as a woman who's been writing a long time -- sometimes in a quasi-successful way and often NOT -- I have to throw one more thing out there about the issue of rejections. I say it because the writing biz has gotten unquestionably harder since I began 30 or so years ago. It's not reasonable to carry this passion, as a joy, forever WITHOUT ANY PUBLICATION OR SUCCESS OF ANY KIND. I mean, that's just horrible to consider, and consider it you must because of how times have changed. But I do have a suggestion! Don't ever forget about the possibility of writing, but not necessarily fiction. Look at what's happened with Mary and her Johns Hopkins book....that's a huge psychological boost for her. So, I would only give you advice that you could try to consider not writing just fiction. This was advice, granted, that I refused to countenance until this year. I'm a goof! I want you to have some positive feed-back come to you, beyond the not inconsiderable joy the act of writing gives to you, because, in truth, we write to be read.
ReplyDeleteI read that post over at Nathan's blog, and it got me thinking as well. I've always been writing, in some form or another, and the very same goes for reading. But it wasn't until I graduated from college with my BA roughly a year and a half ago that I started really considering the pursuit of an authorial career. I wrote my first novel back in September 2008, and I'm on the verge of completing my third in a couple days.
ReplyDeleteI've yet to try to get any of them published, and truth be told, I'm quite afraid of that process, just because I have invested so much time and effort churning these manuscripts out. I can feel myself becoming more intertwined with the writing every day, but I just hope I'm not so involved that the rejections will paralyze me.
It's quite difficult to separate what I'm doing for fun and what I'm doing to make some money, because I really do want a career in writing. I'd be lying to myself if I said I was solely writing for my own enjoyment, even though it does bring me an unparalleled sense of accomplishment. I guess I'll do it as long as it's enjoyable and as long as I have a small chance to earn a living at it. Out of all the possible careers available, I know I'd have a blast creating stories for a living.
Thanks for all your comments.
ReplyDeleteAnna, I agree, it is draining, exhausting, and sad in the end to care for someone in their last days, but yes, so rewarding too.
Jody, thanks so much for your comments. I know how difficult things are these days for writing, but I feel I'm still just getting started in this fiction business, having only tried with two books to get published (just starting with the second), but will definitely take your advice under consideration for the future.
Mitch, good luck to you with your goals. My suggestion when you're just starting out in trying to get published, is to read everything you can on the process, there are so many online resources out there to guide you step by stop on do's and don'ts, how to write a query, synopsis, who are respected agents, who are not, how to find the right agent or publisher for you. Go for it. Rejection is hard, and you will get rejected. Don't let it paralyze you. Take breath, maybe a drink, and move on to the next. :)