Question: What the @#$%! Am I Doing with My Life?
5 Feb
A reader writes:
Here is my major malfunction. I’ve been vacillating between (item A) I have a good job and two good freelance gigs and should be okay focusing on it right now & not having much time to write, because we’re in a recession, DAMMIT, and (item B) I’ve got all of these ideas right NOW, while I’m young, hip & alive! What if someone takes them before I get them out there! What if I’m old news by then? What’s the use of a straight job when there’s ARTUCATION to make??
I’ve been thinking that for some time now and am somewhat hot and bothered that I’m sitting here with good ideas while time ticks by while I try to make ends meet. Like some sort of career version of a biological clock, except instead of menopause, I’m trying to beat . . . I don’t know, exactly . . . my youth? Someone else who does the amazing things I want to do before me?
How does one reconcile this? Should I pitch a project? Should I get an agent? Or just REALLY focus on taking the two or three hours I have at the end of everyday to work up the smaller articles/stories (and never really see my boyfriend again, even though we live in the same house)?
First, thanks for having the guts to lay it bare. I don’t have an answer as to whether or not you should quit your day job, but I do have this insight for you:
That feeling that it has to happen right now, and that it has to be big, and if it isn’t NOW and BIG, then someone else is going to get the NOWNESS and the BIGNESS?
That feeling never goes away.
We are in the business of self-doubt, dissatisfaction and delayed gratification. Right now, if she’s awake, Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison is on tour for A MERCY and thinking, “I’m doing pretty well . . . but I’m doing Shakespeare well.”
So if you’re going to do this, you’re going to have to live with that feeling.
Point two:
When we think of our careers we tend to focus on getting the big break. But an equally important part of getting the big break is being truly ready for the big break.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve wanted to make a movie. I even have what I think are some excellent ideas for a movie. And if Universal Pictures called today and offered me a movie deal, I would be completely f*cked, because there is no way in hell I know how to make a movie.
Nervous energy can dangerous. My advice for you is to give yourself the week off. After your mind settles, focus on how you can use your desire to steadily and surely develop your talent so you can actually execute those ideas.
Be cool, my friend. It will happen. The break will come. And if you’re ready, then you will absolutely crush.
Here’s the thing *I* can’t reconcile:
Nobody can argue writing writing writing practice makes perfect. So even if you eke out a piece that you’re proud of every now and again, how will you ever feel “ready” for anything? How do you work those muscles?
(That is, if you’re working full-time.)
@Maggie true, but you can’t practise yourself to death either.
Lots of people have had successful writing careers and NEVER quit their day job. They didn’t even want to. They just chose to not make it a conflict.
I’ve been reading about professional writers’ workdays for decades now, and the two big things are to make it normal and make it a schedule, with quotas to keep you honest. Which, after all, is very similar to what people tell you about working out.
It sounds like part of your anxiety comes from believing that these big ideas of yours are all you’ll get, and you have to seize the opportunity, but if you’re creative enough to come up with these current brilliant ideas you are bound to come up with more down the line. Don’t think your current ideas any less valuable, but don’t be anxious that they’re the only ones life will ever provide for you. You’re an artist; you come down with brilliant, heartbreaking, hilarious ideas the way other people get colds.
Two things:
Lee is extra-right about ideas past, present and future.
As for what “ready” means, I’ll write up a post about it soon. It’s a worthy topic.
I had this feeling when I finished my last book. I’ve been submitting for a few years, revised this one on request (still waiting on that agent to get right back to me 6 mos later) and when I sent it to her, even though I’ve sent it to other places, I just couldn’t face another book.
So I’ve written a bunch of short stories and sold a couple last fall. So now I’m taking steps, real steps, in my career without “breaking the creative bank” so to speak.
And a month ago I just got back into my novel. I needed the pause to regroup, I think, creatively, and business-wise, too.
I love the image of “coming down with an idea like someone gets a cold.” That’s frigging brilliant.
Seriously. I want my vampire puppet musical and I want it right now! I am so with you. It can be hard to resist the temptation to throw everything away and too easy to discount the value of what you’re already doing. I have some regrets in this area. Maybe the “ready” post can also touch on seeing what you have with fresh eyes, and leveraging it.