My Day Job

Why I won’t/wouldn’t, can’t/couldn’t give up my day job. It is my life. My real life. It is not a nine to five. It is 24/7.

Sometimes it’s hard to take me seriously, as a writer—even for me. That becomes a huge problem. It is a huge problem. How can anyone else take you seriously if you don’t? Why should they?

I mean, take priorities—there is just no contest between getting mother’s medication snafu’s straightened out, ordered, delivered—last minute, because she failed to tell me she used her last blood pressure medicine and besides, it only takes one day to be delivered by mail order,(You don’t know you’ve stepped over that demarcation line, the one between care receiver to care giver, until it rises up and slaps you down.) and where to put that comma or get character worksheets down or plot points worked out.

Taking my writing seriously has always been a struggle anyway, with financial struggles, time crunches, and the unique life of a ‘railroad widow’ raising three boys. There were never two of us to drive three boys to soccer, T-ball, music lessons. There was me and in a real pinch, my mom. (I insert here that I called on her as little as possible because she had enough to do as a widow with a job and a yard to care for.)

Well, now there’s another little guilt stab, isn’t there? She helped me out, and though I don’t feel obligated, I do owe her. From the time I was eighteen, she stood in as my mom and my dad, plus, caregiver to her parents. She stepped up to the plate for her parents, without the support of a husband. (How blessed am I?)

Anyway, it took me forever to figure out how to carve time for my own dreams. I was a stay at home mom back in the day. I was busy trying to give my boys wings, as best I could. Besides it took me a long time (it wasn’t even mentioned back then for a housewife to dream dreams) to learn I needed to dream my dreams and follow them. To learn it was as much for my children and grandchildren as me. If I give my grandkids only that one thing—that it is never too late to follow dreams—that will be everything.

My day job means I am a part-time writer, with a full time guilt. Guilt follows you through raising your family, but it peaks when you’re doing caregiving. You see, the help you give is never enough and those needs keep growing. You end up fearing you’ll be sucked into the tsunami and you’ve seen those who were.

You feel like you’re just waiting for the next disaster, that next one thing that will put you under. You wait for the one thing that breaks the camel’s back—yours. You want to do all you can for your parent, but in the back of your mind, you think about the writing you are not doing and feel guilty about thinking about it. Every day there is a feeling of being torn. In addition, there is more than just caregiving that tears at you. You have your family, your husband. Sometimes to write you give up time with them and is that worth it? You may never reach your goal, but you have all these blessings. Don’t you owe them your time?

I’ve been a caregiver all my life, really. From the fluffy little black kitten with the white bib, I had at six, to pet store animals, babies, boys, husbands and now, my mom. It is something I know how to do. What I don’t know is if I can also write enough, well enough to publish a book.

But it isn’t as if I can quit either.

My day job is my life and my writing holds me up.

Be grateful

for every detail because

tenacity

will get you there and

gratitude

will not allow you

to be angry

when you’ve arrived. —Henry Winkler

I’m not always honest. Quite a few years ago, I did a sneaky thing with my local RWA group. I wrote inspirational essays every month. It looked a lot as if I was helping all the members of that group, cheering them on, giving those pep talks, but all the while, secretly, like a little evil sneak I was really helping myself. I should have been ashamed of myself. I wasn’t. I used them.

I use this blog the same way. I tell all who read my blog the story of my writing struggle. I give details about writer’s block, feeling low; I give pep talks and tell about things that work for me. I want to show, as do many writers, by the way. (There are a million writer blogs-amazing numbers of good ones, too)my journey. I don’t have a ton of followers, hardly any, in fact. Still, I make myself post regularly. All right, this too, is as much (more) for me as my readers. A terrible confession. Worse is, I have purposely left out, for the most part, the biggest challenge of my writing life.

I’ve left it out for good reason, for personal and family reason, but left it out, I have. I probably would keep leave it out, too, except, last week I went in search for blogs that might address the challenge. I didn’t want to feel so alone. I am caregiver to my 93 (almost 94) year-old mother and a writer. I question, often, if I can face all the pitfalls of publishing as I navigate this jungle of elderly care giving. I wonder if there are others in the same boat. I know there are and wanted to find a few, read how it goes with them, read about another like me.

I found a ton of blogs, but none with the same challenges and I wondered if I wasn’t leaving out one of the most important details of my writing life.

I do not want to spend too much time letting myself feel sorry for myself. I was afraid if I looked too hard at those challenges, I just might. I feel, sometimes, I’ve done that with my illness and think it is better, to just move on as much as possible, other than the history of it as it applies to my writing.

Since my internet search, I’ve thought that, maybe, I might say something that might help someone going through the same thing I am, with similar problems and challenges. I thought how nice it would be if there was a blog that talked honestly about trying to get published while caring for an elderly parent.

I’m trying to be a loving caregiver and every day is a challenge. There isn’t enough time, money, patience and always I must fight against being swamped by frustration, exhaustion and guilt. I have to find a way to take care of my mother with kindness, grace and a kind of Zen attitude.

Mostly, that is a whole lot like accepting my illness. A, it is what it is, acceptance. I have to say to myself, the same words I say when I submit a piece of writing. I did the best I could. It’s not perfect, and that’s all right.

A Writer's Impatience

Sunlight, finally, after so long. For many years, February has been the beginning to the end of winter. The first snowmelt, the first all day, truly sunshine day, the sounds of peacocks calling, ‘Help!’ behind our house.

Yesterday, we drove to the mountains where the sunlight was magnified by fresh snow, where snow laced dark, mysterious pines, piled high on abandoned picnic benches and slid from steep-pitched roofs. Where the ski resort was over-packed, the ski runs scattered with ant-size skiers from our perspective and every dog was laughing.

The sun beat against the car window heated us until we were too warm and hungry. All there was to do, then, was stop at a little convenience store for chicken strips and potato logs and douse them with ranch dressing, while we ate in the car like hooky playing teens. Very reminiscent of my teen years, going off the grid, so to speak, on that first good day in February.

Still, spring is coming. I feel it in the back of my neck where something—some tiny muscle finally unwinds, relaxes, whispers—‘you made it through another winter and this time…with flying colors. You’re learning; you are finally learning how to love winter, too.’ And so I am.

Oh, no doubt, I feel rusty. I think that’s normal for anyone. Maybe, hints of hibernation tendencies. I’m growing impatient for bright colors, fresh vegetables and activities without heavy coats and gloves and boots.

Better yet, it feels as though the winter mulch has been brushed away from my writer’s mind. I’m wanting more than editing, blogging. Maybe, it’s because I’ve finished my goal, but I’m starting to want to look for something new and fresh. I’m getting the urge for poetry and researching and planning a new novel and…I’ve waited so long to feel this—renewal.
Ah, ha…spring has been whispering in my muse’s ear.

Promise Kept

Monday morning, sunlight on new snow, the fifteen minutes of purging and organizing my office done and the blank screen reminding me I have a blog to write. That blog, this blog, is really not important to anyone, but me. It is only a commitment I made to myself some two years ago.

It’s done its job. I’ve had a purpose, however unimportant, a deadline, though there is only me to answer to. Still, the promises to yourself you keep have a lot to do with how you keep promises to others.

The promise was to write at least one blog a week, Monday preferably. There were other promises, too. And last week I accomplished another one of those promises.

This promise was made just after the lowest time in my illness. I was starting to feel better. At least, I was eating and doing a little more than sleeping or watching TV. I tried to write, but, as I've written about before, strong medicine with its confusion and muddled mind and weakness only left me panicky and depressed. I cried a lot. Maybe, there was anger, too, but the primary emotion was fear.

I tried to crochet—something I always found comfort and peace in—but I couldn’t keep track of the simplest pattern. At the time, I wasn’t at all certain whether this was a permanent thing or a side-affect to the strong drug I was on. There was nothing in the two-page paperwork that came with the drug about it affecting mind, memory, emotion, writing.

As my husband said, it is what it is -the only answer we had. I started doing cross-stitch. Oh, not the counting the little weave of cross-stitch material thing. No, this was the old-fashioned stamped cross-stitching I learned back in grade school. Very repetitious and simple, but therapeutic in some very elemental way.

The pieces I did turned out beautiful. They are charming additions to my décor, but better still, I like seeing them on my walls. Actually, I cherish them…for so many reasons. I accomplished something as I got better, something very tangible. I like that it was words stitched into linen. Somehow, that soothed over the fact I wasn’t writing.

I had the samplers framed and placed where I would see them every day and send up gratitude prayers when I did.

It was right before I hit on the idea of doing the samplers that I’d tucked my most recent novel—Ellie and the Tie-down Man—away in to a storage box. As I’ve written before, I wasn’t sure I would ever open that box again, let alone edit and complete the book. I cried some more and sank into a funk. I felt guilt about the funk, because I was getting better. That was what we had prayed and hoped and worked so hard for. It was why I became obsessive about taking my meds and watching every grain of salt.

I just didn’t think getting better might mean giving up writing. With a lot of help and support from family and friends, I did start writing again and I’m actually very glad everything happened exactly as it did. I came back to the writing slowly but finally, I opened that storage box. When I did, I promised myself I’d get Ellie and the Tie-down Man ready for submission.

I finished edited the book last week, polished the first three chapters, even more, wrote a synopsis, query letter and sent Ella and the Tie-down Man with all its changes (character name change the most evident) into two contests.

I’m not going to say that winning wouldn’t be a hoot, it would, but me keeping this promise is the main reward. Writing this book from the beginning to now was a journey, with more snake pits than I’ve mentioned to anyone. It has earned itself and I’d love to see this book published but if that never happens, (and that’s the most likely scenario) I’ll always be proud of it.

Books, Bookstores and Pat Conroy

I’ve truly been blessed lately with some wonderful books. Not so long ago, I was complaining about the condition of my reading material. Oh, I’ll say I still miss having more Western Historical to read, but I’ve found some great books to fill in with. Last week I read an exceptional book: Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life.

The subject fit right into my last blog. Tastes in books are so personal and it was fascinating to hear about another voracious reader and bibliomaniac. It isn’t well enough for me to just read a book. For me, it is a much more tactile than that. Nothing is as compelling as the smell of an old bookstore, heaped with dusty books. Old books are best, with turned down pages and scribbling in the margins, yellowed paper and dark library-colored covers. Then, there are the paperbacks.
I blame my father, I do. He brought home old books he found at Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City. Books such as King of the Wind, Old Bones, and all of Thornton Burgess’ books. At the time, I was horse crazy and I never met an animal I didn’t like. Later, it was poetry: Emily Dickerson and Sonnets From the Portuguese, incidentally, one of my most prized books because he died soon after he gave it to me and it was the only book he ever inscribed.

Conroy writes of libraries, bookstores, and books with such love and passion. He writes those emotions beautifully, too, his writing style like blue silk velvet. And while his reading was much more diligent and formidable than mine, the sentiment was so like mine when he spoke of what he read. He talked as if reading was a feast, and it is. The best.

I would say I’m much more inclined to read the popular stuff than the classics, but I read what I read with as much zeal and enjoyment. The only classics I’ve read were assigned in school. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy them; I just had to read them. In my off time, I did a lot of reading, unlike most of my friends, but my reading material was most often genre fiction.

My reading material doesn’t shame me though, because I think there is a lot of great writing in all those ‘dime novels.’ Yet, reading Conroy’s book gave me the desire to read a few classics on my own, with no gun in my ribs.

As I use to tell my boys, I don’t care what you read, just read.

The Children's Library

The children’s section of our city library was in the basement with its own entrance, down gray cement stairs and through a wooden door. When I opened that heavy door, a little bell jangled a warning for the children’s librarian, Mrs. Peterson, nested behind the desk, directing eager, respectful kids to their chosen fantasies. As I remember, she was mostly round and soft, white and gray. Her face pleated when she smiled and she smiled most of the time, unless you disturbed the hushed quiet of her kingdom.

The children’s library was dark, low ceilinged with that musty, rich smell of crowded books and oak bookcases stuffed with mellow-colored covers in dark burgundy, navy, moss green. Oak card files, chest high tops, covered with heavy glass, outfitted with pencil holder, library stamp and return cards, low tables with ladder-back chairs, dark patterned carpet and Mrs. Peterson’s executive desk, in the place of command.

Once a year she brought in her dolls, displaying the extensive collection around the shadowy interior. Many years later when I visited the library, long after I quit the children’s section and there was a new library building, the dolls were on display. She had bequeathed the collection to the library in a very generous gift, but nothing like the gift of reading she fostered in so many children.

My mother had three voracious readers and she sought help from an expert. Mrs. Peterson always knew exactly where to find the books that would suit each of our interests. Even mine.
Reading was important to my parents, though they never said so in so many words. Not like I did and still do with my own children and grandchildren, but they read to us every night and made a trip to the library every two weeks to check out books for their own pleasure. Often there wasn’t enough money for luxuries, but there were always books, borrowed, bought second-hand, or given as gifts. How lucky I was.

By the time I was eight, I was reading just about everything. If I found a subject I liked, I’d read through ever book I could find. I remember reading through the whole shelf and a half of horse stories the summer I was twelve and horse-crazy. The next year it was boy/girl stories and Mrs. Peterson knew exactly what I was looking for and where to find them.

The year after that, when my mother asked for advice on books for me, Mrs. Peterson stood up and folded her hands over her soft belly. “I think she’s ready to go upstairs.”

As simple as that. I never thought much about Mrs. Peterson, after that, or what she meant in my life. She, most likely, didn’t think much of that shy, dish-water blonde girl who went from horse-crazy to boy-crazy in one short year either, but that little girl wonders now, about her dedication to books and reading and children. That small way she gave so much. Not a bad legacy. Not a bad thing to remember and honor in some way.

Godsends for Febraury 2011

Wow, it’s been months since I’ve done a Godsend blog. That’s the thing, isn’t it? You just get so busy you fail to notice all those wonderful joys and graces that make life great. You’re so busy living you don’t take the time to have a small gratitude moment.

And it’s true, I’ve really been head-down focused on finishing the editing on Tie-down Man along with Christmas, the New Year and all the family, cooking, gifting that comes with that. There have been two family funerals, which should remind a person how fleeting life is, but doesn’t always and of course, my mother’s needs to manage. Still, I know there have been some Godsends. This morning sunrise, for one.

I did mention a few wonderful books I’ve read, Godsends for me. But the one thing I promised I would do with each good book I read was write the author and let them know. I haven’t done that. And I promised myself when I was sick that when I got better I would take note of those Godsends. It’s important. Here I am months since I’ve done it and I feel a bit disappointed in myself. Not for all I’ve accomplished. I have done well, but for things I let slip by without taking a moment to appreciate.

So, for this February Godsend:

• Discovering a ledger with my entries from 1983-1985. A small revealing glimpse inside my
family from that time.
• The rereading of an old manuscript I should never have given up on.
• The kindness of Kaki Warner’s encouragement and information.
• Help around the house.
• A good movie, popcorn included.
• A bouquet of tulips, yellow, of course.
• Decluttering my office. Oh, what I’ve found.
• Stories about loved ones I’ve never heard before.
• I can almost see spring, honest.
• Pink and red and hearts taking over the stores color scheme.