Thursday, September 22, 2005
When I first picked up "Art and Fear" (also discussed in my excellent friend Kathy's blog) a few months ago, I was struck by a phrase that said that people with artistic intentions who want to do something "practical" often end up doing the wrong thing. Painters end up as interior designers, photographers end up as ... I don't know, graphic designers? ... and writers end up as, well, copy editors.
Recently God has been hitting me over the head with a few epiphanies, and they're getting harder and harder to ignore. I'd really like to chicken out and say I can't do them, but I have no choice. It's becoming clear to me there is a path I have to follow, and it's not the one I'm on right now. I've been thinking lately about how my obituary would read if I were to die tomorrow. I read a lot of obits in my line of work, and most of them talk about the person's contribution to society -- their care of their family, the company they ran, their creative pursuits. My obit would read that I was a very small player in a large organization, and I had been doing nothing special for the past couple of years. Frankly, that's not the legacy I want to leave my son. I want him to be proud of me, I want him to think I have a cool job, I want him to see me as dynamic and exciting, and being a copy editor is exactly the opposite of that.
And it's not just that. I am a person who started out with a pure love of something but got scared. I knew from childhood that I wanted to be a writer. But one day, browsing the Sears Mall Waldenbooks, I took a good hard look at a wall of paperbacks looming over me. And I thought, how can I ever compete with all that? How am I going to make any money doing it? I thought hard and worried about it, and I settled on journalism as an acceptable alternative -- a way to be guaranteed a paycheck. I'm glad I'm a journalist. I love the training I've gotten, the discipline and the possibilities. But I don't want to be an editor anymore. I want to write again.
There's been a disconnect for a long time between what I want and what I think I should be doing. Now, with work-related upheaval, and perhaps an opportunity to make a fresh start, I can change everything. Instead of secretly hoping to get laid off, I can get out of here, and start trying again to be the person I set out to be 15 years ago.
This is terrifying on a lot of levels. I have a son, a mortgage and car payments. We've propped up our lifestyle based on my salary. I don't know that I can step off the ledge that's my comfortable and unchallenging job without plummeting to earth. There's the practical questions of what kind of writing would I do. Making a living off creative writing is out of the question … but I know from past work that writing of any kind gets the juices running across the disciplines. Would I freelance? Be a reporter somewhere?
Why can't we all just pursue our dreams, regardless of money?
Recently God has been hitting me over the head with a few epiphanies, and they're getting harder and harder to ignore. I'd really like to chicken out and say I can't do them, but I have no choice. It's becoming clear to me there is a path I have to follow, and it's not the one I'm on right now. I've been thinking lately about how my obituary would read if I were to die tomorrow. I read a lot of obits in my line of work, and most of them talk about the person's contribution to society -- their care of their family, the company they ran, their creative pursuits. My obit would read that I was a very small player in a large organization, and I had been doing nothing special for the past couple of years. Frankly, that's not the legacy I want to leave my son. I want him to be proud of me, I want him to think I have a cool job, I want him to see me as dynamic and exciting, and being a copy editor is exactly the opposite of that.
And it's not just that. I am a person who started out with a pure love of something but got scared. I knew from childhood that I wanted to be a writer. But one day, browsing the Sears Mall Waldenbooks, I took a good hard look at a wall of paperbacks looming over me. And I thought, how can I ever compete with all that? How am I going to make any money doing it? I thought hard and worried about it, and I settled on journalism as an acceptable alternative -- a way to be guaranteed a paycheck. I'm glad I'm a journalist. I love the training I've gotten, the discipline and the possibilities. But I don't want to be an editor anymore. I want to write again.
There's been a disconnect for a long time between what I want and what I think I should be doing. Now, with work-related upheaval, and perhaps an opportunity to make a fresh start, I can change everything. Instead of secretly hoping to get laid off, I can get out of here, and start trying again to be the person I set out to be 15 years ago.
This is terrifying on a lot of levels. I have a son, a mortgage and car payments. We've propped up our lifestyle based on my salary. I don't know that I can step off the ledge that's my comfortable and unchallenging job without plummeting to earth. There's the practical questions of what kind of writing would I do. Making a living off creative writing is out of the question … but I know from past work that writing of any kind gets the juices running across the disciplines. Would I freelance? Be a reporter somewhere?
Why can't we all just pursue our dreams, regardless of money?
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I've been thinking lately that I wish we could step back and see ourselves through someone else's eyes for a while. Not someone in particular, and not with any awareness that we're observing ourSELVES, just to get a different perspective. Because few of us would be happy with our own obits, but the people who write them for us do so with a lot of affection, love, and respect.
Throughout your life, you can be a lot of things, but you can't be them all at once. At present, to oversimplify greatly, you're someone's mom and a provider of physical comforts. Which includes a comfortable home to live in and material goods, paid for by the wages you earn. I don't advocate staying in a job that hurts you, but I also don't think you have to be doing your absolute most creative perfect work all the time. You're still creative, you're still a writer - it's who you ARE - but don't berate yourself for not giving everything you love your full attention all of the time. It's unpossible.
Throughout your life, you can be a lot of things, but you can't be them all at once. At present, to oversimplify greatly, you're someone's mom and a provider of physical comforts. Which includes a comfortable home to live in and material goods, paid for by the wages you earn. I don't advocate staying in a job that hurts you, but I also don't think you have to be doing your absolute most creative perfect work all the time. You're still creative, you're still a writer - it's who you ARE - but don't berate yourself for not giving everything you love your full attention all of the time. It's unpossible.
I was laid off from a job and a company that I loved rather unexpectedly. And while at the time I could not possibly see what would happen after, it turned out to be the greatest gift in the world to have the chance to develop all new skills and learn more. It was not a scenario I would wish on anyone, however, especially one with a child and 'real' financial responsibilities. I took a lot of risk - mainly because I could - and while I am glad to have done it, I had my full energy and time to do so with no one else relying on me. Had that not been the case, I'm sure I would have viewed things very differently.
I reinvented soup to nuts because that's what I thought I needed to do to advance. In your case, there may be room to reinvent within the current situation - perhaps there are reporting opps at the paper, or maybe there are jobs out there working via remote, writing for an online publication. I KNOW there is room for good writers in online journalism (and of course I know you're a great writer).
In my view, there are no 'career tracks' anymore (there are in the newspaper industry, but not outside of it, I think). People go back and forth all the time. Look at all of the communications people in politics who go back and forth between politics and journalism. Happens all the time in sports, too - coaches who become commentators who become coaches again.
My point is that there may be ways to do what you want to do without placing everything you've built completely at risk.
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I reinvented soup to nuts because that's what I thought I needed to do to advance. In your case, there may be room to reinvent within the current situation - perhaps there are reporting opps at the paper, or maybe there are jobs out there working via remote, writing for an online publication. I KNOW there is room for good writers in online journalism (and of course I know you're a great writer).
In my view, there are no 'career tracks' anymore (there are in the newspaper industry, but not outside of it, I think). People go back and forth all the time. Look at all of the communications people in politics who go back and forth between politics and journalism. Happens all the time in sports, too - coaches who become commentators who become coaches again.
My point is that there may be ways to do what you want to do without placing everything you've built completely at risk.
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