So You Want To Be A Writer

It was during a fairly serious downturn in the real estate market that I began to think of writing again. Normally when business is bad, I will go into a nice, deep, dark depression at the thought of all of the money I am not making. This time, thanks to liberal doses of Wellbutrin, I began casting around for something else to do with my new-found free time.

 I instinctively turned to creative endeavors, anything that was the polar opposite of the business world that was currently making me feel like I had “Personal Failure” tattooed on my forehead. I painted, made collages and even practiced my rusty Tarot reading skills. I did whatever it took to keep my mind off my money and my money off my mind.

While at lunch with some friends one day I was telling a rather colorful story about a former client. I have a habit of telling these stories, most, I freely admit, embellished for dramatic effect. When I had finished, one of my friends said, “Oh my god, you should  totally write that down!” This was a suggestion that this particular friend had often made, but that I had always blown off. I was not a writer! I was a Realtor! But now, with nothing selling and no big paychecks coming in, there was more room for thought. Instead of immediately blowing off her suggestion, I started thinking about why I even wanted to blow it off in the first place. Why could I throw myself into any number of creative projects, but I couldn't even let myself think about writing?

I had, after all, done my share of writing. I wrote as a child and I wrote as an adolescent. During my misspent teenage years I wrote horribly maudlin short stories with wild abandon and truly shitty poetry with absolutely no shame. I wrote in journals, and then on enormous word processors and finally on computers. I continued to write in college, even after freshman year when my alcoholic creative writing teacher told me my work was trash, as delirium tremens shook his hand so badly that little to none of his Pepsi Clear made the journey from the can to his lips. I wrote papers, and a master's thesis. I journaled and wrote brief vignettes while living abroad. I even secretly dreamed of being a travel writer.

And then I just stopped writing. Life, as it will do, simply got in the way. I got a job that vaguely involved writing, lost said job, and went on to have a whole series of increasingly crappy jobs that involved doing whatever needed to be done to pay the bills. And then my father died. Suddenly it was Time-To-Grow-Up. Time to be the person I always thought my father wanted me to be. Time to get a real job. I fleetingly thought of trying to find a writing related career – freelance writing, copy editing, anything involving the written word. But writing is a hobby, I told myself, not a career. And so, I put away what I thought were childish things in order to make a living at something I had sworn I would never do: selling houses.

In the following years, the memory of that drunk, little troll of a creative writing teacher, so-called adult common sense, the lure of making more than enough money to cover the bills, and the daily mechanics of life pushed any dreams I had ever had of writing far, far away.

Until one night not too long after the aforementioned lunch, when one of my friends again cried, “Oh my god! You should totally write that down!” This time, I didn't immediately blow her off. I didn't even think about why I wanted to blow her off. Instead, I looked her dead in the eye and said, “Yeah, I totally should!”

In a movie, especially the awesome 80s kind of my youth, that would have been the moment when the montage started. With a Kenny Loggins song as my soundtrack, preferably “I'm Alright,” the audience would see a quick succession of scenes: me sitting at a typewriter, typing, and then ripping out and crumpling up page after page and throwing them in the trash can, until finally a stack of papers begins piling up on the desk, only to wind up as a hardbound book on a bookstore shelf by the end of the song. I'm Alright! Nobody worry bout me!

But of course it didn't happen that way. I was still very doubtful about the whole idea of writing, and to tell the truth, more than a little intimidated. Could I or couldn't I? Should I or shouldn't I? The column for the Shouldn't/Couldn't Side grew very quickly. I was just too old. I should have done this in college. If I was a Real Writer, then the desire to write would never have left me. I had turned my back on writing and therefore didn't deserve a second chance at it now. Not to mention that writing pays diddly squat. The temptation to chuck the whole idea was very strong, but I had already opened Pandora's box. Now that I had allowed myself to even entertain the idea of writing again, I felt that I should at least give it a try. What did I have to lose?

This then, you say, must have been the turning point, right? I began writing at that very moment and never looked back, Kenny Loggins fading out as I rode off into the sunset, all evildoers duly conquered. Not exactly. No, at that moment I began  reading about writing. Or at least getting books on writing and leaving them laying around my house and in my car. I found every writing related book I could: books on how to start writing, memoirs of famous authors, books about possible writing careers. I even took several online quizzes, each promising to tell me once and for all if I had what it took to be a Real Writer. I did everything I could think of except actually sit down and write.

One evening during this time, I sat scouring the online public library catalog for any books about writing I may have previously missed, not having found any magic answers in the first fifteen I was currently attempting to absorb through osmosis. While on the library website, I noticed that the 3rd in a four part series of writer's workshops was to be held in just a few days – and for absolutely free, no less! What more could a thrifty, aspiring writer in search of guidance ask for? And maybe I had been going about this whole thing the wrong way. Reading about writing was not going to make me a writer. Listening to other people talk about writing was going to make me a writer.

This would finally be my turning point, my chance at my own montage. I would meet very important published authors and make new writer friends. The latter would be edgy, cosmopolitan intellectuals with whom I could sling witty banter and exchange ironic pop culture referencing quips all night long, all the while laughing at those poor slobs working 9 to 5 for The Man. They would also have incredibly sophisticated all black wardrobes.

It sounded like a great idea that night. But on the appointed day, while gathering up my purse and keys to head out to the small, satellite library branch on the far, far end of town where the workshop was to be held, I began to see things more clearly. Those important published authors and edgy intellectuals would not become my friends. They would, instead, see right through me and call me out for the poser I had always secretly feared I was. While they talked about starting their second, third, or even fourth novels, I would be forced to admit that the only writing credits to my name involve website content and part of an educational software manual. After this public humiliation, they would tell me I was way too old to even bother starting. As I slunk away, completely mortified, I would hear them snickering with glee. “Educational software manual, indeed! That poor, poor, creature,” says one, while another adds, “Well, you know the world needs gas station attendants and cashiers too!”

I was standing at the side door, keys and purse in hand, and knowing that going to this writing workshop would mean certain doom when my husband came into the kitchen.

“Aren't you going to that writing thing?” he asked. Shit. I forgot I had told him about it, fearing this exact chickening out scenario. But he of all people would understand why I couldn't go, wouldn't he? He was my husband, for god's sake. He wouldn't let me be eaten alive by the intelligentsia. Wasn't there even something in our wedding vows about that?

And then I noticed the hopeful look in his eyes that I recognized all too well: the hopeful Halo look. Three hours of me out of the house meant three hours of guilt-free Halo 3 for him.

“Well,” I said anyway, ignoring his X-Box eyes, “It is the 3rd part in a 4 part series. I probably shouldn't even go if I missed the first two...right?” I knew he would understand this lame excuse for what it was - my shameless final attempt to back out of this thing while still saving face. He would recognize this ploy, and let me off the hook, video games or no video games.

“Naw,” he said, already heading downstairs to slay his friends online, “you should go anyway.”

So off I went to face my certain literary demise. How could I possibly measure up to what surely would be ivy league educated writers who were not only way smarter than me but had also attended the two first writing workshops? The secret gems they must have learned there! I would be too far behind and would probably be chastised by the workshop leader to boot. She would be an accomplished author in her own right, and would not tolerate undedicated, not to mention untalented, pupils. She would probably immediately sense I had never published anything and send me packing before I ever had a chance to sit down.

It was not too late to go home. Sure, I had already driven half an hour and was almost in the next county, but so what? I could always say I had gotten lost, couldn't find it, and had been forced to turn around and come home, not wanting to risk winding up in Uncle Daddy, Tennessee.

But I simply had to soldier on. This was my last hope. I had tried thinking about writing on and off for minutes at a time. I had tried not reading every book about writing there was. I had even tried not writing at all. This writing workshop was all I had left if I was finally going to be a writer.

As it turns out, I did get lost, and so I walked in about 20 minutes late and tried to settle in as quietly and quickly as I could, expecting smug looks of reprimand from the smartly turned-out intellectuals surely to be in attendance. Taking the seat closest to the door, not daring to even look around, I readied pen and paper for the coming words of wisdom.

It appeared I had only missed the recap of last week's session and had arrived just in time to hear the leader introduce the first topic of the night – characterization.

“...so, good characters are essential to a good story. As writers, we should work on developing realistic characters that our readers can identify with.”

This woman, the Published Author, was not wearing the cosmopolitan designer outfit, or even the retro-mod ensemble, I had imagined all week long. Rather, she had on a putty colored cardigan, underneath which was a faded t-shirt, the word, “witch” visible as it stretched across her ample bosom.

This last detail sparked a warning flare in my subconscious, but I ignored it. I was simply too nervous to pay heed to it. As the teacher went on, and I realized I wasn't going to be kicked out, at least not immediately, I began to feel more comfortable. I briefly looked around the table and saw that it was an all-female group, and at a glance, they didn't seem the least bit intimidating.

And then a strange thing happened. I started to feel like I belonged there. The more I listened, the more conscious I became that I was in the company of writers. Real writers! Sitting at that table, I had become a member of a true artistic community! This was something I hadn't felt in years: the giddiness of unlimited possibilities coupled with a sense of true belonging. I may have abandoned writing, but here was my shot at redemption! Here were people like me, people who wanted to nurture their creativity, break out of their ruts and write! Damn the critics! Fuck the man! We were artists! We were writers!

High on my pink cloud, I had completely zoned out. Coming back to earth, I heard the workshop leader say something about how you should not alienate your reader with certain topics.

“Take my partner, for example. She also writes fantasy fiction...”

Fantasy fiction? That earlier warning flare now came front and center and had turned into a red alert.

“...and has a tendency to include very long, detailed, and might I say explicitly pornographic lesbian sex scenes in her novels. Some of these go so far as to include dragons and...”

There have been a handful of moments in my life when I have literally heard an imaginary needle go screeching across an imaginary record on an imaginary record player in my mind. This was such a moment. Barely avoiding what would have been a classic spit take, I somehow managed to swallow my mouthful of coffee and sat completely dumbfounded.

Dragon sex? Now, maybe I am a misguided snob, but in all of my imaginings of this workshop, the idea of fantasy fiction never entered my mind. I had known many true intellectuals and none of them would be caught dead seriously talking about dragons in public. Sure, they would ridicule the dragon and the fantasy fiction writer for that matter, but seriously discussing the realm of the fantastic, beyond any plot line on the X-Files, was a serious no-no. What was next, unicorns?

The workshop leader was still talking, but had moved on from her previous topic. She was now cutting paper dolls out of sheets of paper to illustrate how flimsy characters cannot, literally, “stand up.”

This was not getting better.

“When I was writing my latest fantasy novel,” the Published Author went on, “ I was trying to flesh out the partner of my main character, I thought about the possibility of a talking harp with a human head, but I realized this was just not believable. So, after several brainstorming sessions, the idea struck me that a harp with a human head may not be believable, but a harp with a unicorn head would work perfectly and...”

Oh, sweet Jesus. There it was. Unicorns. Harp-bodied unicorns.

I looked around at my fellow future writers, confident they too would be looking back at me and each other in utter disbelief. Or if nothing else, suppressing giggles or even snickering inwardly and rolling their eyes. I saw nothing of the sort. Everyone was paying rapt attention, taking notes, and even asking questions.

It was then that I actually began really looking at the people at the table. And they were a little different than what I had first thought.

Take, for example, the middle-aged woman, wearing the required and unmistakable uniform of the religious homeschooler – floor length denim skirt, long sleeve high neck top, sensible shoes, and three foot long braid draped over her shoulder. By all rights, this woman who should have been going into anaphalactic shock at the mere mention of the unholy trinity of mythical creatures, sex, and, possible homosexuality, but she appeared completely nonplussed, and was smiling and offering around a tin of homemade cookies.

Then there was the young lady of about fifteen or sixteen sitting directly to my left, dressed all in black. But this was not academic black, or even the black of the beat poet. This was Goth black, complete with skull ring, eyeliner and attitude. She sat, seemingly unaware of the rest of us, gouging the outline of a demonic-looking face into her spiral notebook cover over and over again with a ballpoint pen, an inch of baby blond roots growing in behind the matte, black dye she had used to try to cover them up. Take that, daddy!

Finally there was an eighty, possibly ninety, something grandma, sitting right up front, next to the workshop leader. She was smiling dreamily at a point somewhere on the back wall between me and Goth Girl, completely unaware of where she was, much less that she was being forced to listen to harrowing tales of dragon bestiality while simultaneously being offered snicker doodles.

I had naively wandered into that most harrowing of environments for any true cynic and general smart ass: the Irony-Free Zone. There was no witty banter here. No razor sharp quips. Not even a half-hearted comeback or two. There was, instead, homemade cookies and unicorn harp dragon sex.

I can hear you asking the $100,000 question right about now: Why in the world did it never occur to me that members of the literati, worldly published authors, and other such intellectual types probably do not attend free writing workshops at small satellite branches of their public libraries entitled, “So You Want to Be an Writer?” After careful contemplation, I have come up with two reasons.

The first reason was snobbery. I am a horrible snob. I have a running list of things that I simply cannot abide and try to avoid at all costs. It is an enormous list and includes fantasy fiction, capes, top hats, central Florida, Don Henley (with or without the Eagles), homeschoolers, Marion Zimmer Bradley (with or without her beloved retelling of the Arthurian legends The Mists of Avalon), new country music, Mariah Carey, scrap booking, and bad action movies. This snobbery tends to blind me to the fact that other people could ever possibly tolerate, much less like, any of the things I find wholly unpalatable. Thus I was able to fall in love with and marry a man who loves to listen to Kenny Chesney and Mariah Carey, will watch Armageddon until his eyes bleed and has a sister who lives in Orlando. I just never saw it coming.

The second reason was insecurity. I was so terribly insecure, so afraid of people laughing at the mere idea of me being a writer, so mortified at the thought of being outed as a loser, that I simply projected all of those fears onto the people I thought would attend such a workshop.

Essentially, in my mind, anyone attending such an event would have to be a bigger snob and be even more insecure than me. It never occurred to me that they would just be normal people who were having a hard time putting pen to paper. We all just needed a nudge. Or a snickerdoodle.

I don't remember a whole lot about the workshop after the dragon sex and unicorn harps, but the evening was not a complete waste of time. Sitting there, I kept thinking that if these people could write, if, indeed, someone could write a whole series of novels about a  harp with a unicorn head, then surely, I, too, could write. What was there to be afraid of? And didn't I live for truly surreal yet sublime situations like the one this woman had inadvertently created for me here? Ones that I could later tell my friends, with slight embellishments, over lunch? You just couldn't make this kind of thing up. And that's when it struck me. “Oh my god,” I thought. “I should totally write this down!”