So, You Want To Be A Writer, Eh? (or, the long road to writing: part 2)

Or you want to be a neurosurgeon?  A movie star?  A super hero?

If you have a dream — be it to write or otherwise — that you’ve kept close to your heart, that you’ve tried to pass off as a hobby or flight of fancy, and have convinced yourself you’re better off doing something else, be it to make more money, please your family, or just because it’s else is easier, I’d like to share with you my story in hopes it helps you figure yours out.

My previous post is about explains that I want to be a writer.  If you’re thinking about chasing your own dream, you might be wondering how I know that…what’s making me finally act.

As I’ve just told you, writing has been an interest of mine for as long as I can remember. But even though it’s been a passion, I never thought it could be a career.  I assumed this was a pipe dream, a long shot, akin to trying to make it rich in the NFL.  Whenever I felt a flash of creativity, I recalled the trope of the starving artist and the story of Harry Potter getting rejected by 12 publishers.  In short, I assumed it was never going to happen.  So I turned my professional efforts elsewhere.

But several things have happened to me over the past year which have seriously made me reexamine this notion. The first of which is that I don’t like my job.  It isn’t that I hate it, it’s fine actually, but it’s that it does nothing for me. And it’s not like something bad will happen.  I’m not going to hurl myself off a cliff, I’m not wrist-slittingly sad.  It’s that nothing is going to happen.  Nothing else.  Nothing new.  Nothing different.  It’s that this could be my life every day for the next ten or twenty years.  And this can’t be it.  It can’t be my life.

And, in fact, it isn’t my life.  My life is so much more than that.  From the outside, you’d hardly tell.  I get up every day, walk my dog, go to work, do my job…All of it, hardly worth noticing.  So much so, that I honestly can’t blame anyone for having not noticed me all these years.  I’m, of course, a little sad no one has, but I understand all the same.  And that’s because, while I was sitting there, quietly and efficiently getting my work done and minding my own business, I was also dreaming up stories, creating characters, drafting scenes,

You see, this is simply what I do.  I go to bed thinking about stories, I wake up thinking about stories.  It’s what I do while I’m driving.  It’s what I do when at lunch.  It’s not only what I do, but it’s who I am.

I am a writer before I am most other things.  In fact, if I had to rank it as part of my identity, it might supersede just about everything other than being a woman.

I’ve gotten to the point where I can no longer ignore this.  I’ve tried to let writing be a hobby, an interest, and it just hasn’t worked.  This is not some passing phase.  It’s an integral part of who I am.

But now I have to figure out if I can make it work for me.

I’m not impulsive colt, so I’ve had to do some serious soul searching to see if I actually think I can be a writer.  This isn’t the same as seeing if I can actually do the writing.  And if you’re trying to actualize your own dreams, I’d encourage you to think about these two things very carefully.  Because doing the job and living the life are two very different things.

I’m convinced I’ve got the creativity and skill writing requires, but that’s only a small part of what it takes to succeed. I also need the discipline and follow through to succeed.  Since I decided I absolutely knew I wanted to be a writer back in February, I’ve been testing myself since then to see if I can actually do it.  I’ve made myself write almost every day.  And that’s part of the reason I’m starting this blog, to hold myself accountable for keeping up that standard.  Because I have to be able to do it a lot and often if I want to make this my work.   And it turns out, I can.

Another big chuck of it is having the agency and proactiveness to find work.  Because it isn’t just going to fall in your lap.  Writers have to go out there and make connections.  They have to figure out what people want to read and who’s willing to publish it.  Only then are they going to make any money.  And this is no easy task.  It’s time consuming, stressful, and quite frankly, annoying, but it is the way it is.

This is, admittedly, one of my weakest parts.  I’m new to the table, and part of the reason I’m here is to get help figuring this out, but I’m not daunted.  I’m an adult with real responsibilities, but I think I can do it.

So, dear readers, I’d encourage you think similarly if you want to fulfill your dreams.  Figure out, first, why you want to be what you think you want to be.  Make sure you actually want the whole package, look at the good and the bad.  Don’t try to become a neurosurgeon if you just want the money or prestige.  Make sure you can take the long hours.  The sweat.  The blood.  Don’t try and become a movie star just because you want to walk down the red carpet.  If that’s what attracting you, consider carefully why you want that attention, what it means to you, and what your life would really be like if you got it.  If you want to be a super hero…well, I’m sorry, you can’t, because they don’t really exist, but you can still be a hero.  Figure out what it is that excites you about the idea of being a hero and then what real job that corresponds to.   Is it the action you life?  Or the praise?  Or do you just want to see lots of stuff explode?

Spending some time with yourself and seriously considering these things I hope will help your make your best choice.  And if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll figure it out sooner than I did.

Kindly,

Carrie

(Do you like what I have to say?  Find any of it helpful?  Or do you disagree?  Have another point of view?  Let me know in a comment below).

My Story (or the long road to writing)

I could tell the story of how I realized I wanted to be a writer in two ways.  In the first, I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer.  I remember in kindergarten, we had a “story bag” that a student got to take home every weekend.  They’d create a story and then share it with the class.  I remember being so excited about this, I got to take the “story bag” home twice.  I can recall crafting my first story–about a mother dog and her puppies–and cutting the book to be in the shape of the mother dog. Probably not my best work, to be sure, but the drive was certainly there.

I can also recall in early grade school having to write a fable.  “How the Parakeets Got Their Colors” was mine (if you’re curious, they flew into a fruit tree).

I remember the first story I wrote on my own, the tale of Goldenstar, a racehorse.

What we can take from these memories is that I either A) loved animals as a child, or B) enjoyed telling stories.

Actually, both or true.  But you can probably guess which I’m focusing on.

In the fourth grade, I remember pouting that I didn’t want to read my assigned novel because “I prefered telling my own stories to myself instead.”  I don’t actually remember what any of those stories were, but I think we can safely assume they had to do with animals.

When my fifth grade career fair rolled around, for a class assignment we had to create a poster featuring our desired career.  I remember not really knowing what I wanted to do for a career, I guess I’d never really thought about it.  So my teacher asked me what I liked, and I told her, telling stories. So I made my poster and in the middle of it, I wrote in large letters, “WRITER”.

My memories are far less specific as I get older, I suppose because I had more demanding academics, though I do recall being assigned a few creative projects and being terribly excited about them.  In fact, my ninth grade English teacher asked me to help her try to get a creative writing class created (I don’t even know how she knew I liked creative writing).  I also became the editor of my school’s literary magazine for two years and I went on to continue this in college.   

Yet somehow, it never occurred to me that I might be able to make writing a career.  It was a hobby, a pastime, something I did for fun.  So I double majored, and one of my degrees was in creative writing, but the other was in something far more practical.

But my love of writing was ever-lurking in the back of my mind, and it wasn’t long after I graduated that I came upon another moment where I knew I wanted to be a writer.  I moved to Europe, got a job (probably all in avoidance of that dreaded 9-5 job), and met one of the most influential women in my life: Buffy, Cazavampiros  (yes, that’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Spanish).

Go ahead and judge me if you like, but Buffy is still one of the most important things in my life.  Not the least of which is because she’s set my gold standard for feminism, but also because watching her show ignited in me another flash of passion.  I can vividly recall the opening credits:

The Nerf Herder slammin’ soundtrack playing as images of my beloved Scoobies flashed by.  Buffy swinging her stake, Willow, Xander, Giles as a couple vamps bit the dust.  And then, as the anthem wound down, these words appeared: Created by Joss Whedon.

You see, one of the things that gave me pause about writing was that I didn’t know what I wanted to write.  I liked everything!  I didn’t know if I was a poet or a novelist.  I didn’t know if I wanted to write or edit.  All I really knew is that I loved stories.  But then I saw that word: creator.  Something about it just clicked in me.  I knew that was what I wanted to do: I wanted to create.

I didn’t hop on a plane and fly to Hollywood, however.  I just let my eyes shine as I thought about that word and continued with my daily life because, since I already thought writing was an impossible of enough career, writing for Hollywood was…….

So I went back to my regular life, and again, in my spare time, dreamt up my big stories.  I bought notebooks and wrote them down.  And then I went back to things as usual.

Due to the sinking Spanish economy and the difficulty getting Visas renewed, I found myself back in the U.S. and decided I wanted to go to grad school (again, probably because I wanted to avoid getting that dreaded “real” job.)

I got my Masters in English (though I took more creative writing classes than regular English ones), and then I graduated and it was time for me to get a real job.  I frantically applied for every job I could because I could no longer avoid entering the workforce unless I wanted to get a PhD (and if there’s one thing I learned in grad school it’s that I didn’t want more of it).

So I got a job.  A fine job.  A very good enough job, for sure.  I’m good at it, and, while it doesn’t pay as much as I like, I did get a degree in English, so this is what I expected.  I have a nice desk.  It’s in a nice office.  I’ve got benefits and a 401 K (and I’m not even sure what that is!)  I’ve basically got the American Dream.  Go me!

But there’s one problem.  It isn’t my dream.  I don’t like it.  I don’t want it.  And now that I look back, I realize I never did.

So here’s the second way I tell this story, the part where I somehow never really realized that I wanted to be a writer despite all that stuff I just told you about the parakeets and the literary magazines and Joss Whedon.  This is the part where, at 8 am, I roll into my office hating life because it’s February and it’s cold and it’s still dark outside because someone in society has apparently deemed it an appropriate hour to start the day.  This is the part where I can no longer ignore that I’m not doing what I want to with my life.  I don’t even like my life.  And as I flicker on my computer and clutch my cup of hot tea, I promise to myself that this cannot be it.  This is the part where I promise myself that things have got to change.

So here I am, still trying.  I won’t pretend like I’ve got it all figured out, but if my story resonates with you in some way, maybe we can help each other figure it all out.

All My Best,

Carrie

Hello World!

Hi, my name is Carrie, and I want to be a writer.

I’ve recently realized that writing is a big part of who I am, but it’s not currently what I do, so, as you can see, I have a bit of a problem.

This blog is my attempt to fix that.

My writing here is an attempt to share with you the realizations and events that have led me to pursue my dreams so that you might figure out what to do with yours.  I also want to share any wisdom and advice I pick up about the writing field to other aspiring writers, and am similarly looking for wisdom and advice from any writers who’ve already made it.

I’m honestly not certain how any of this will go, but appreciate anyone who’s willing to join me on the journey.

Til next time!

Carrie