5.24.2010

the small & unguessed life


One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. -- André Gide

'Tis the season of graduation parties, balloons on mailboxes in the neighborhood, cakes frosted in school colors, Pomp and Circumstance...
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And if you're like me, it's time to squint at the year on the calendar and count backward a few... did I really graduate from college four years ago? Four?? (Which puts high school at eight, shockingly enough. Let's just move on ...)
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It is so funny to think back to May 20, 2006 and college graduation. I was doing the bold thing, the crazy thing: abandoning my goal of five years for an idea I'd had that February. Instead of going into editing, I decided to come back home to my parents' house and try to write a novel.
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It felt so big, daring, and grand. Write a novel? At age 21, do you really give up the prospect of steady employment for the sake of a novel idea you haven't had yet? It felt gutsy, and it was.
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I'd give it a year, I decided. Sounded safe enough: a whole year to see if I could "make it work." I told everyone, I received tons of support and encouragement, and I moved back home. Fired up my computer. Stared at my quiet, blank screen.
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Fast forward four years to my life now, and let me tell you: this isn't what I thought my life would be like in 2010.
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Not even a little bit.
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In my mind, 2010 had two options. Either I had miraculously proven my ability at writing quick, brilliant novels (an oxymoron, at least for me), and I would be making a living at it... (Yes, we can all say NAIVE, all together class...)
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Or, by 2010 I would have shelved the whole business, in favor of making dependable money at a publishing company. Probably wearing a cute array of business suits. Listening attentively at meetings. I'd have a desk, with a little name plate on it. And everyone could point to me and say exactly what it was that I did. (Luxurious thought!)
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Either I would be a writing success or a publishing success. Those were my options.
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I thought those were my options.
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Certainly I wouldn't still be living at home. Working on the same book. That would be a small, slow life, and it wasn't what I had in mind.
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Four years later, I'm starting draft four of the same novel that I started the summer after graduation. I'm also planning its sequel: I hope to "break ground" on that draft in late August. And I had a November fling with a completely new story idea.
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So four years later, I have three books in my head and heart, two of them in draft form.
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Small, my graduation self would have said. Small and crazy. And I would not still be at home at age twenty-five!!
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But now I wonder if it's my graduation self that had the small vision. That had narrow views of success and how fast it must be achieved.
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I don't always know what I'm aiming for now--they aren't the bright, definable goals I used to have: A better draft. Snappier dialogue than I wrote yesterday. Clearer insight into my characters than I had last week. A more open heart. A calmer spirit in the face of ongoing uncertainty.
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Some things are the same: My computer screen is sometimes blank. I have moments where I think I'm crazy. I have a lot of my former idealism, and a healthy streak of naiveté, which keeps me chasing my work. And my family still believes as much in my writing as I do--and often they find more belief in me than I have for myself.
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But sometimes, though I hate to say it, I'm still my narrow, 2006 self, measuring success in terms of calendar squares instead of the many victories won from my writing chair.
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So I still have a lot to learn. But at least I'm revising my idea of small. By next year, maybe I can abandon that term altogether.

3 comments:

  1. I have found that it takes a serious long-term vision (and a fair amount of confidence and faith) to remind yourself that what you're doing actually is what you wanted to do, though it's not how you planned it.
    I have realized that after college I'm essentially starting over. Hopefully, in about six years from now I'll have worked enough to be able to go back to school with kids who have just graduated high school. So I know that sinking feeling of "what am I doing with myself?"

    Much to discuss over coffee :)

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  2. Forget all this "small" talk right away. I think you're amazing. = )

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