Breeding and Writing: Why you aren’t ready to be a writer

 

–by Tracy Lucas

 

Last Thursday, I found out a close relative has cancer. Friday, I found out it is advanced, has been deemed inoperable, and will probably be fatal.

The stricken person is someone I deeply admire and dearly love. I’ve been crying off and on ever since and trying to come to terms with the news.

It isn’t working.

Lots of people have cancer. Many of them die. (Some don’t, of course, let’s say that.) I’d venture a bet that everyone reading this either knows someone who has had cancer or has battled it firsthand. I’ve lost several other relatives to it before; we’ve all been down this road, and way too often.

But what is tearing me up in particular this time is not only my affection for the woman it’s happening to, though of course that plays a part—it’s that I’m not ready to lose her.

This woman is young. She is healthy (or so we thought), works out daily, eats mostly farm-raised meat and fresh vegetables, doesn’t smoke, and is insanely capable of hard, grueling work. She is strong. She is alive.

And now she may have mere weeks until she’s not.

It’s not just that I’m going to miss the hell out of her. It’s not just that it’s unfair, or that it was unlikely. All that’s true, but it isn’t what’s knocked the wind out of me.

It’s that I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready when I had a child, either.

The thought of having a baby was so far from the realm of possibility that I was convinced I had the flu four weeks in a row… until I realized something else that hadn’t happened in a month either. (Oops.)

The day I found out I was pregnant, I bawled my eyes out. I threw up, over and over, and it wasn’t due to morning sickness. I bundled up in bed and turned off the lights. I didn’t move for days.

Here I was, happily married, living with a roof over my head and food in my kitchen. I love being around kids, and had no doubt that this little person would kick ass and be an awesome adventure to raise. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him. Not even for a second.

But I didn’t know how I was going to pay for anything. I didn’t know how I’d manage work when I couldn’t stand up without feeling dizzy, or eat and keep anything down. I didn’t know if I was risking my life by having a baby, since my mother had complications with me that almost took her out. Most horrifying was that I didn’t know how a seven-pound anything was going to come out of something the size of a half-dollar.

I was terrified. I wanted to wait; I wanted to think about it first; I wanted a time-out.

And that’s how it is again, now, in the face of a heartbreaking death.

I don’t want her to die yet. I want another Christmas. I want family pictures, and her attendance at my son’s graduation in seventeen years, and her hair to have the chance to turn grey. I need it all to stop for a minute and let me catch up, let me breathe.

We don’t get that chance in the writing world, either.

Opportunities to write and create come by frequently, but we’re too afraid. I know I was, early on, and I chickened out of trying for things that could have turned out well and changed my life.

My husband tells the story of when he worked at Taco Bell as a high-school kid, and someone told him over the drive-thru speaker that he had a great voice and should be in radio. He laughed it off, said, “Yeah, right,” and watched in surprise as a well-established radio personality took her hot sauce, shrugged, and left him behind in the window.

What if he’d said yes? What if he’d driven to the station on his next day off and mentioned the exchange, or asked to speak to the woman about a job?

What if he’d believed in himself enough to give it a shot?

Google any celebrity who didn’t come from Daddy’s money, and you’re likely to find a wholly bizarre rags-to-riches story.

Bill freakin’ Gates started with equipment bought from rummage sale money and dropped out of college. Donald Trump filed bankruptcy. Repeatedly. Harrison Ford met George Lucas because he was hired to build cabinets in Lucas’s home. Justin Beiber became an overnight sensation when, well—that’s just it.

You never know what’s around the corner. Amazing things could be lying in wait, or devastating events could be just about to drop.

What matters is that you trust yourself enough to take those chances. Have the confidence to step up and give it a crack. Do the best you can and don’t be afraid to offer it.

There are a million writers in the world. You may never be the best one. (I know I’m not.) But the beauty of it is, you don’t have to be. You just have to be in the right place at the right time, and willing to work hard to grow and better yourself.

You just have to show up. Be the best writer in your hometown, in your office, in your county, on your social network. The world is made up of small ponds; you don’t always have to be the big fish. If you sit around and try to wait until you’re a hundred percent ready for launch and you know everyone and everything you’ll need to, you will fail. You will never take the first step, and you’ll languish and die in your dreams instead of reaching them.

I’m convinced that’s the hardest part of being a writer: showing up and announcing yourself. It’s claiming the title, voicing the opinions, doing the legwork, resolving to take both the credit and the blame. It’s ignoring the fear and jumping anyway.

Don’t want to be a writer. Be one.

If you have the guts to do that, you just might be ready.

Yes, even if you don’t know what to expect. Especially then, actually—admitting you’re not always in control frees you to look around and see things for how they really are. You can only grab the opportunities you are open enough to notice. Be open.

Life isn’t later. There is no later. There is only now.

Life never waits for “ready.”