Trying

This is just some very general advice from a girl who may or may not know what she's talking about. But since people seem to think I do, I will just say that doing your own research is really important, in my opinion. Don't rely on someone else to find you an agent, or a publisher, or a life, or a boyfriend or girlfriend, or a this or a that. But mainly in terms of the writing stuff. First of all, it's lazy. Second of all, I think, and I am probably wrong about this, but I still think that the harder you personally work for something, the more you'll be rewarded.*

And it's not like you can't look into things yourself. It's the Internet people, it's all there, pretty much. There are a TON of author, publisher, and agent blogs, the latter of which I find endlessly fascinating. I just discovered Rachel Vater's blog and devoured all the information. If I sound bitter, it's more that I'm just tired, and have been a slacker supreme lately. I don't wake up early and write, and I don't write when I get home. I just lie there against the pillow and somehow think the words will magically leap out from my brain to some screen to some editor. Barbara Demarco-Barrett is so smart. She wrote this fabulous book Pen on Fire and doesn't check email in the mornings, but instead, writes. Now, I love email, but it's such an easy crutch. Oh, I have to answer this one email, and by the time you do, three more have piled up and you remember this person and that person you have to write to immediately. It's funny, because on those rare occasions I actually allow myself to sit down, browser off, Word on, and just go, my fingers fly. But still, twenty years later, I'm still petrified of failing. Of blank screen and clumsy words and being wrong. I'd rather pre-empt the failure by not even trying, and that, I must say, is such a tough routine to break out of.

*continued here (I realize this post is a bit rambly, but whatever, too tired to make it more coherent) Maybe I have to think that after the last 7 years, from leaving law school until now, because if that's not true, I might as well quit. I didn't do my research at the beginning. I just said yes yes yes to everything, cause I wanted to be in, I wanted to be part of things, I wanted to be an "author." That's one way to do it, and sometimes you're so broke and stuck in a day job and just hungry to be doing something, anything, that you agree to whatever. You write for free, a lot, you don't plan ahead at all, you just go from one thing to another utterly aimlessly. I'm talking about myself here, because I still do. I try to say yes to everything and then I can't live up to my own promises. Hello, lifelong pattern.

But ultimately, I am trying to learn and grown and be an adult. To not fuck up, but to not overcommit. To believe in myself. It's so fucking easy to let other people steer you down the wrong path. To believe the naysayers, to agree even when your stomach turns over. There are sharks and snakes and people who just don't have your best interest at heart, but ultimately, I think that's such a personal thing. Yes, ask questions, but I am kindof through trying to do anything but dig myself out of these self-dug holes. I need to keep my eyes on the $80,000 prize, because I want babies, I want a life, I want to be free. I don't just want to be the girl who failed. And I know, I have done a lot, I've worked my ass off in ways I never could've imagined sitting in that law school feeling like a complete idiot. Now, even at its roughest, deep deep down, I know I can do it. Will I? is another question, but can I? Yes. In law school, I think deep down I didn't think I could. I felt like the answers were floating just over my head and I couldn't see a way to grasp onto them. This life is tough, and I'm tough on myself, I know that. Lately I crash so hard, and wake up in a panic, and run around until I just want to somehow pulverize myself and start over as someone else. Yet I also know that even if that were an option, it would be the easy way out. The hard way, but the real, human, honest, challenging as fuck way, is to work through it. To do my best but keep striving to be better. To never ever be complacent or ungrateful. To learn how to say no, early and often, over and over and over, often to myself. To not be so needy and grabby and wanting, yet to not give up. That's a balancing act I haven't learned yet, but I'm trying. All this to say that no, I have no fucking clue how to help anyone else, I just don't. I'm maxed out and have to start really taking care of myself. It's funny because I'm surrounded by babies, and lately I think about so much in terms of being a mom someday, and yet I treat myself like shit. And I need to work on that before everything. I think I do that and then I want someone else to swoop in and take care of me in all the ways I don't, and that's wrong. I see that, and I'm just trying. Day to day, serenity prayer and all that. It's funny because it's not about drinking anymore for me, but serenity? I'm not even close. I feel like it's too easy to always choose accepting what I can't change, to defaulting to that, rather than learning from my really brilliant friends about how to change even the things that seem impossible to change. I'm so complacent sometimes it makes me want to scream.

So yeah, I am really not your go-to girl for advice. I'm lucky, and have stumbled into many fabulous opportunities. And I do work my ass off, but I'm really one of those people who just work a lot, but don't work smarter. I don't have the business sense or the perseverance or the guts I see in my friends, who can cold call and bargain and haggle and who believe their worth X dollars per word. I'm still so awestruck at everything that I'm like, oh, a penny a paragraph, yes please. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but close. And yet, even as I type that, part of me knows that I will never be totally mercenary. There will always be things I would, and probably will write for free. I know, I should not type that publicly, should not say or admit that, and yet, it's there. It's true. I'm such a fan I just can't help it. But maybe it's about balance, not the either/or, not the self-hatred. Carolita Johnson called rejection "Vitamin R" and I love that. I need to learn from the rejectees to be a little more gracious and believe in myself, so that when those slings and arrows come, especially the ones that start from inside, I can deflect them with a smile on my face.