I’m still dabbling my toes in this new school-year schedule. Natalie’s pick-up means much less of the afternoon coffee calm I have grown so fond of, but the mornings are now sacred to writing. While Sophie sleeps away the hours (bless the child), I fix myself something hot and drinkable with one too many spoonfuls of sugar and pick my brain for usable words. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t. Always, I feel like a charlatan in an artists’ world.
It’s so very easy to believe that other creative types spend all day in enchanted studios with brightly-lit idea dispensers and chocolate fountains spewing time. I love my little corner, but I have a horrible suspicion it’s only a playhouse where I make-believe what real adults do. Stephen King advises writing six hours a day, every day of the week, and then reading books the rest of the time to keep the mind fit. Anne Lamott instructs her students to plow through “shitty first drafts” and then put the bulk of time into rewriting. Julia Cameron recommends free-writing three “Morning Pages” every day to stimulate thought flow. Good advice, all. But they might as well advise me to write in Chinese.
I see my main job as loving my sweet husband and precious little girls by scrubbing, mending, doing umpteen hours of dishes a week, traveling, dancing, and taking afternoons off to play at the park. It’s the very best kind of hard work, and I’m happy to fit my writing in around the edges. But is that allowed? I can’t help thinking as I vacuum that Stephen King would tell me I’m obviously not committed enough. As I daydream and deliberate over an artful first draft, I can imagine Anne Lamott kicking me out of her class, and Julia Cameron’s “tsk tsk” rings in my ears as I bustle my early morning away with bottles and cereal and Winnie the Pooh backpacks.
I guess I’m just struggling to feel legitimate. And confident. And comfortable with the push-pull of a multi-faceted life. And less squeamish and crumbly about creating differently from everyone else. Oh, I hate being different. This feels an awful lot like being the only girl in seventh grade wearing lacy puffed-sleeve dresses while all the others look like Bratz models* and publish a best-selling novel each year and are swamped with incredible freelance gigs and have their names in the running for a Pulitzer and wear snappy glasses and never wash dishes because they’re too committed to leading brilliant author-y lives. I think I could be unequivocally happy with my present lifestyle once I get over this different complex and accept that maybe my way of finding fulfillment in writing is just right for me. Or if they start giving out Pulitzers for vacuuming. Either way.
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*Please pretend that’s not a true story. Please?
this post made me think of Anne Lamott’s “Operating Instructions: A Journal Of My Son’s First Year” (the great book that you send me – thanks again!) and I’m absolutely convinced that she’d love to have you in her class – but then would tell you that you do not need it!!! way to go!!!
I love your blog. It’s amazing to me sometimes how God has connected people like us together, only to spread us all over the world. Forget Stephen King, Anne Lamont, and Julia Cameron. They may have “made it”, but their lives are empty and devoid of real joy. Sometimes our puffy sleeves still haunt us in our adult life, and though it’s hard to swallow sometimes (I cried for two hours last night over my playdate with the cool kids), there’s a reason for it. Who you are is beautiful, and someday, I will buy your book and know how much better it is than anything Stephen King ever wrote. You have blood, sweat, and tears behind your writing that only other moms (who actually care about their children) truly understand. Persue your dream! Be patient, though, and remember that it takes time. (Time is my new least favorite word, by the way.)
damn damn blogger!!
I left you a looooong comment urging you to pick up a copy of Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” and to remember that Steven King is a raging alcoholic and that Julia Cameron (I read her autobiography) has MAJOR personal struggles of her own . . and I could go on and on– mostly to say, I admire BOTH those writers, but don’t compare myself to them as they have their own path– different from mine.
I honor your writing path. I honor your dedication to writing in the midst of raising a family and creating a home.
you, my dear, are no charlatan!
bisous, bp
Yeah, what BP said!!
Wow, you all should hire yourselves our as an encouragement posse. I keep re-reading these comments when I need an extra ration of courage; thank you.