So, you want to be a writer
I am currently looking for a job (you hiring? No? too bad...). It's an interesting experience. Technically, I have been offered one position so far, but I had to turn it down. Because, seriously, I can't move my family a few hundred miles south to a place with little to no housing that happens to also smell like over-cooked beans if you are going to pay me a ridiculously low salary to teach kids all day long...Oh wait, I got off track.
So, I keep applying at various places and hoping for a call. (Funny story, another school down south in the same town that already offered me a job called me for an interview...goodness.) Otherwise, so far I've had one email saying basically 'thanks and we'll be in touch when we start interviewing' which was better than the non-response from all the others. It's gotten me to thinking - maybe, just maybe, I don't really want a job and so I keep putting non-job vibes out into the universe. And instead of picking up on the oh-gosh-my-family-needs-me-to-have-a-job vibes, the universe is picking up the oh-gosh-I-want-to-write-not-teach vibes.
I do really want to write and be paid for it. I do, I do.
Problem is, I don't, I don't. Write, that is. Not as much as I could or should. I dabble in it, despite my previous commitments to it otherwise. I'm proud to say my dabbling was twice published this spring, quite flattering. But, neither paid. My dabbling has me to about 28,000 words of a YA fantasy novel I've been working on for nine years (I keep count by Carly's age because I started it just before she arrived). I've also got another novel in the works. And another young reader fiction book stewing. And a picture book that needs illustrating by someone talented. And an idea for another YA novel. And another young reader novel. Some of these have been vetted here. And some haven't. (Are you interested in being a reader and giving actual feedback because it would really help me to have some outside perspective? No? Moving on...)
Thing is, I'm scared. Ruled by fear. What if people don't like what I write? What if I can't finish the story. What if no publishers think it's worthwhile to sell? What if I really just don't have it in me to write something beautiful? Does it have to be beautiful? What if I never make it? Is this all wasted time? Wasted words?
Anything worth doing is worth risking, perhaps. I'm trying hard not to be afraid. And I'm trying hard to sit down and write for more than 10 minutes at a time. I'm thinking about how to make myself a real office space where I go "work" (because the couch doesn't work for "work"). And, despite all the fear, I'm fairly positively sure that I want to be a writer, and perhaps a teacher on the side.
It's the how of making that happen that's tripping me up.
That, and the fear.
So, I keep applying at various places and hoping for a call. (Funny story, another school down south in the same town that already offered me a job called me for an interview...goodness.) Otherwise, so far I've had one email saying basically 'thanks and we'll be in touch when we start interviewing' which was better than the non-response from all the others. It's gotten me to thinking - maybe, just maybe, I don't really want a job and so I keep putting non-job vibes out into the universe. And instead of picking up on the oh-gosh-my-family-needs-me-to-have-a-job vibes, the universe is picking up the oh-gosh-I-want-to-write-not-teach vibes.
I do really want to write and be paid for it. I do, I do.
Problem is, I don't, I don't. Write, that is. Not as much as I could or should. I dabble in it, despite my previous commitments to it otherwise. I'm proud to say my dabbling was twice published this spring, quite flattering. But, neither paid. My dabbling has me to about 28,000 words of a YA fantasy novel I've been working on for nine years (I keep count by Carly's age because I started it just before she arrived). I've also got another novel in the works. And another young reader fiction book stewing. And a picture book that needs illustrating by someone talented. And an idea for another YA novel. And another young reader novel. Some of these have been vetted here. And some haven't. (Are you interested in being a reader and giving actual feedback because it would really help me to have some outside perspective? No? Moving on...)
Thing is, I'm scared. Ruled by fear. What if people don't like what I write? What if I can't finish the story. What if no publishers think it's worthwhile to sell? What if I really just don't have it in me to write something beautiful? Does it have to be beautiful? What if I never make it? Is this all wasted time? Wasted words?
Anything worth doing is worth risking, perhaps. I'm trying hard not to be afraid. And I'm trying hard to sit down and write for more than 10 minutes at a time. I'm thinking about how to make myself a real office space where I go "work" (because the couch doesn't work for "work"). And, despite all the fear, I'm fairly positively sure that I want to be a writer, and perhaps a teacher on the side.
It's the how of making that happen that's tripping me up.
That, and the fear.
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