Finding The Lost Compass For A Creative Life
What I wish I'd known when I had my first go-round at being a fulltime writer: believe in yourself and don't obey cultural rules instead of following your own path
Look: an ersatz woman gazing out at an ersatz LA —
I was barely 40, sitting in the Dangerous Visions booth at the LA Times Book Fair. Thirty people came with books for me to sign. It was my first collection of short fiction and poetry.
A line of people!
I’d signed a few books when a monstrous man interrupted and threw fraudulent court papers at me over my 10-year-old daughter’s head.
She cried. The bookshop owners laughed. There was a picture in LOCUS, the “magazine of the science fiction field.”
I should have left that man forever, left that town, I should have left that state, I should have gone to Europe, to Japan, to Australia, to Canada, anywhere —
Else.
My mother and father wanted to move to New Zealand. She might have made it work, as one of the top animation art directors in the world.
Before I was born, before she died, she’d flown to London to meet with Ronald Searle, and to Santa Rosa, to meet with Charles Schulz. Was she pregnant? She must have been.
Everyone knows who Charles Schulz is. Thousands know Ronald Searle.
I had a set of small soft plastic Peanuts dolls growing up. I used to play with them and imagine what my mother had been like.
She died at age 40 when I was 3 months old, and nearly every day of my life, I have wondered why I lived past that age, and what she may have done, what I may have done — with her, for her, because of her — had she not died of pancreatic cancer so young.
A handful of people know my mother’s work and most days I feel that not a soul knows a thing I’ve ever written.
My aunt used to read my stories and one time, rubbed one of them for good luck when I sent it to enter a contest. She’s been gone — a while now.
You are what you do for a living.
No, you’re not.
You are who you’re with.
No, you’re not.
Work hard and you’ll be successful.
First, you need to define your version of success.
Things to Avoid
Accidental wandering far afield into toxic wastelands.
Prioritizing everyone else over your self.
Prioritizing money over happiness.
Thinking fame and money matter.
Do something beautiful every day.
Your credit score matters.
No it does not.
Write every day even if you don’t want to.
Don’t do the dishes instead of writing.
Build yourself a space to create.
Don’t accept second-best and especially not nothing at all.
Remember you don’t need substances to create or live.
You need good food, fresh water, sunlight and love.
Never stand still.
Always keep moving.
Use your heart and instinct more than your conscious mind.
Love what you do, and if you don’t love it:
Stop.
If you get turned aside, keep moving. It’s nothing personal. You don’t want to work with someone who doesn’t want to work with you.
Don’t rewrite anything more than twice: just start over.
Your work is valuable, it is worthy, it is what you love and it is what you were born to do.
This is just the encouragement I need.