I come back to the old pages over and again. I start to read, and then feel so strange inside, and I wonder who it is that actually wrote the words. Surely it wasn’t me, because I don’t even know what is going to happen next. I don’t remember these names, these characters, these plot lines.
Having once been an avid writer can really mess with your head. It makes you wonder if you are still a fiction writer. Still a writer at all. It makes you wonder if those hundreds of thousands of words and more than six full length manuscripts you wrote were just a fever dream. I think back to those days, when I heard a song and immediately thought not of my own life, but the life of a character I was getting to know. How would they relate to these lyrics? How would this song fit into the background of the scene I’m in the middle of writing, if I imagined the scene like one in a movie? My pockets and purses were filled with scraps of paper – all shapes and sizes written with whatever was nearby. A pencil, a pen, a Sharpie, a crayon, maybe. The ideas flowed easily. I was in flow all the time, actually.
I absolutely loved this part of my life.
I was inspired by quotes like “Once your character says or does something that surprises you, that’s when you truly become a fiction writer.” That may be the quote, but it probably isn’t. I am having a hard time even finding the quote via google. And this one (some version of it, anyway!) used to be a favorite of mine. Because it actually happened to me once. I even remember muttering out loud, “No, I can’t believe you’re doing this,” as I typed out the scene at hand. My characters began making their own choices and I didn’t always like what they were up to.
Being a writer made me feel alive in a way that I haven’t experienced since I stopped.
It’s been a long time. It’s been about a decade, to be honest. There were three or four years when I wrote prolifically. Life was perfectly set up for me to spend time writing, working, and even thinking about my characters while I worked. Whether I was doing customer service at a busy bakery (chatting with customers gave me so many character plot ideas) or quietly creating chocolate truffles in a kitchen where I was the only employee (my mind would wander… far), I was actively engaged in the writing process. I had other commitments in life and even had busy weeks and days…
So here I am, trying to figure out the difference. What is so different between then and now?
It isn’t just parenting. Yes, I was “kidless” back then. I was married and we had tons of friends. My twin sister and ex husband were in a band together and I went to every single show and gathering surrounding their music ambitions. I was their biggest fan. Some of their songs even sparked ideas for my characters and plotlines.
I stopped “being able to write” when two big things happened:
- I went through my divorce. At first, the pain of divorce led to a lot of grim writing. My writing had never been chipper and upbeat, but it definitely got darker and more macabre as my life fell apart. I moved from lengthy novels to poems and short stories. My characters were extremely broken and I didn’t see much hope for their lives, either. This writing was cathartic and matched my energy. I suppose during this time period I turned into sort of a cliche. I was no longer a happy, but deep, writer who explored writing topics like “sci-fi” and “existential-break-up-crisis” and “what our dreams truly mean” and “who ushers us into the next life?”… No. Now, I smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey neat, had a shaved head and wrote the most depressing short stories I could muster up after standing outside in the bitter cold on purpose just to feel something. I remember that time well. I remember what that felt like. And the dark writing eventually faded, too.
- After sending in what felt like hundreds of query letters to literary agents, I finally had a request to read my entire manuscript. Weeks later, I got a rejection letter back. All of the previous rejection letters had fueled me. Every rejection meant I had sent something in. Every rejection before then felt like something I could frame. It gave me momentum. It was the closeness of having a positive response that then turned into a rejection that halted me altogether. I still haven’t completely figured out why. And I really wish it hadn’t done that. So now, I can only move forward.
These two events: The Rejection and The Divorce happened within months of each other. I can hardly remember which happened first, but I really think it was the rejection letter from the agent. It was then that I started shifting my focus a bit toward the short stories and poetry, but my writing inspiration and style truly changed (for better or worse, who’s to say?) once I realized I would be a divorcee before the age of 24.
Now, I am 35. Through the last ten years, I have still written thousands of words, but mostly in blog form. I have shared perhaps “too much” about my life, but I don’t regret a single thing I put out there. I have heard from people that my experiences have helped them get through theirs, and that has made each vulnerable moment worth something more than I can express with words. It’s a feeling I get, knowing that I was born to write.
I’ve had some distractions, it’s true. At the age of 26 I became a stepmom to three young children. I know this is a huge part of why writing was hard to come by, but I can’t blame anyone but myself and the boundaries I hadn’t yet learned. And I had to learn them the way I did, so really, I’m okay with it. I wouldn’t have grown much if I’d stayed a happy-go-lucky 22 year old with oodles of time to write when I wasn’t off doing things that I only considered fun. I experienced some adversity and someone really hating me without knowing me – that sucked up more energy, too. And again, I can only blame myself and all that I didn’t know about… you guessed it… my boundaries, and I’ll add to that, self-worth.
I have spent my time in the last decade learning about myself and others. I often joke that I’ve learned more about myself (mostly my physical body through countless doctor’s appointments I never dreamed I’d be going to, in many different capacities) than I ever wanted to know. And it’s true. Before, I wanted to ride the wave of enjoyment forever. I wanted to stay in my hometown and marry the person I met at age 17. I wanted to “have five kids and be a stay at home mom and make home made bread and have chickens and just be a writer when I felt like it and and and and and.”
But did I really? That, really, is the question. Is that what I really wanted? Maybe. But that isn’t how I moved forward in life. And later, when given a solid and clear choice between:
Easy (move again and date someone my own age with no kids)
and
Hard (stay in the small town I never dreamed of staying in and marry a man with three children)
I chose hard.
I, like a character I may have written, or may have had no idea how to write at the time, chose the hard path. And I am so thankful I did.
I am so glad that I married this man, with all that he brought along with him. I am so glad I gave so much of myself to his kids and had to learn the hard way how to love myself and ultimately, love others better. I am so glad I endured the proverbial beating a new stepmom will often get, so cliche and so hurtful. I am so glad I never left. I am so glad I stayed here, with this family, in this life… even with the snow and the tears and the sleepless nights.
I am so glad that this body I live in was diagnosed with an eye disease that is supposed to leave me blind. This has given me a chance to appreciate sight. Not appreciate it MORE, but to appreciate it in the first place. If I am honest with myself, I took most mundane parts of life for granted, including eyesight. And this diagnosis is no longer something that scares me, because along the way, I met wise women who assured me I didn’t have to embrace the word blind or believe that blindness is my future.
I am still in the midst of chunks of skin being removed at a rapid pace of about every two months or so. Big, quarter sized chunks, we’re talking. But this experience gives me something to be grateful for: dermatologists. I had my forehead chopped up at the age of 30 and while that was traumatizing at the time, I got to live up to my own proclaimed love of scars. Can’t talk the talk unless you are willing to walk the walk. And life gives plenty of opportunities to walk it, doesn’t it?
Looking back to the time when I could write for hours and hours, would I have ever been able to write fully about a character, a woman, who spent eight years longing for a child, only to have failed attempts at pregnancy over and over and over again? And those are just the eight years spent with one particular person. This was a lifetime of dreaming and longing. But mostly? A lifetime filled with fear that it would never happen.
Would I have been able to write about a woman who realized this idea, this soul, this energy I longed for was something that wouldn’t actually be sated by a baby in my arms?
I had written about characters who probably drank too much, but had I ever dreamed that I’d become the person in my own life who had to make the choice to never drink again? Certainly, this would come as a huge shock to bright eyed and bushy tailed Melinda-the-writer. She wouldn’t have believed it.
No, this past decade of life hasn’t been filled up with just distractions from writing. It has been filled up with living. Living in every sense of the word. I have been consumed with pain, love, panic, peace, fear, acceptance, risks, safety, hurt, calm, lust, intrigue, rage, affection, wonder and so many other beautiful aspects of life. I haven’t been distracted and taken away from writing. I have, perhaps, been ushered into the very life I needed in order to write something good and fruitful. And the best is yet to come.
I have learned that time isn’t real and that capitalism and patriarchy are constructs I’m not much a fan of. I’ve learned that human design, enneagram, astrology and energy healing are topics I find to be fascinating and have added beauty to my life in ways that will surely break the hearts of others I know and love. I’ve learned that I’m not in charge of how I make others feel, and that going to sleep each night with a clear conscience doesn’t mean appeasing every single person on this earth. I’ve learned that my husband is an extremely wise, humble, and patient voice in my ear, gently asking me not to go too far as to get lost. Yet, he encourages the best kind of exploration and excitement.
I chose the hard path and boy, it’s been hard. In all the best ways. The ways that teach you something and the ways that make you look back and smile (hindsight being what it is, and all). Not one second of it was boring. I can say that, too.
So I’ll end with this thought:
Being a writer made me feel alive in a way that I haven’t experienced since I stopped, however …
Living my life, rather than simply writing fiction, has made me experience something better than I knew existed.
I don’t have time in my day to write and ruminate over my characters right now, because the characters in my own real life take up the space, and I much prefer it that way. The words I’d hear my fictional friends saying in my head (and quickly jotted down on a scrap) are actual words resounding all around me by the kids, by Israel, by friends, by coworkers, by the family I spend time with on the phone. I am consumed with a full life.
And I fully believe that the written word has been with me all along, ushering my own story as it unfolded and continues to unfold, and will continue as I live each day. I will embrace writing as I am learning to embrace aging: with a respect and gratitude that it is happening all the time without my having to try too hard.