Living the Dream

Terry here with our question of the week: How did you picture the life of a writer when you first dreamt of becoming one? Did you romanticize your dream? Or were you pragmatic and realistic about it? Compare your dream to the reality. 

 I was always focused more on the writing than the dream. My vague dream, which emerged gradually, was to write a publishable book. What happened after that was always cloudly. Sure, when I actually hunkered down to write a novel, I had moments of thinking, “What if I write a book that makes it big? What if it sells a million copies?” But I never really pictured what that might mean. 

 My first inkling of what it might be to write something people wanted to read was in seventh grade when our teacher made the assignment that we should a short story about “anything.” I now realize how amazing that was. No constrictions. No “you have to do ‘this’ to get it right.” Just write a story. I don’t remember if it was difficult for me to decide what to write. But I do remember that when it was done, I thought it was a clever, solid story. 

When the teacher was ready to hand back our work, she said there was one that stood out and that she was going to read it aloud. She thought everyone would like it. I remember the rush of knowing, with no reservations, that she was going to read my story. And she did. 

 She didn’t say whose it was until the end. My classmates showered me with praise. And that’s what I always pictured as the life I wanted as a writer—that people would like what I wrote. That people would want to read my stories and would tell me how much they loved them. 

 As a youngster, I thought small. It never occurred to me to write stories and send them off to magazines or to contests. When I read about writers who in their teens sent off their stories with the hopes of getting them published, I’m astounded that they even knew that was possible, much less had the nerve to try. Pragmatic? Realistic? Perhaps. 

But sadly, I think of myself more as lacking in confidence. I didn’t have the confidence to dream, or even to picture myself as a “writer.” But I wrote. In high school when I’d turn in a fiction assignment, my teachers would look at me funny. I know now that they probably were surprised that I had a rich interior life. I had only one teacher who encouraged me to write. But with no suggestion of how that might fit into my world. 

 My actual dream had nothing to do with writing. I wanted to make money. I wanted a job that would support me and where I could excel. It never occurred to me that writing might be that endeavor. At one point I looked into applying for a job as an editor at a publishing house. I didn’t really even know what that meant; just that it would put me into the world of books. I was easily discouraged. Becoming an editor meant moving “back east,” a vague term that for a girl from Texas loomed way too large. And besides, it wasn’t a well-paid job. 

I look back now and think how sad it was that I had no one to guide me. No one who could tell me that as a voracious reader, getting any job in the world of books would be satisfying. (See the end of my post)

 In college, I told my English professor that I wanted to be a writer. He said, “Then don’t major in English literature. Major in something that gets you out in the world where you have experiences.” I majored in political science. And after I graduated, went to work for the CIA. Where I was sent to school to learn how to be a computer programmer/ analyst. I was in IT for the next ten years, first at the CIA, then later at a number of companies in the private sector. I liked IT, and found it rewarding, financially and emotionally. I always liked to achieve a job well-done, so I wasn’t unhappy. 

Still, I often went to my car at lunch and wrote. It took a long time before I began to dream. I wanted to write a novel that would be published. A novel. That was my dream. That “dream” drove me to write novels after work and on weekends. Six of them before I finally got published. 

 To say that I was surprised by the success of my first novel, A Killing at Cotton Hill—winning the Macavity Award, short-listed for various other awards, a best-seller—is an understatement. That success bred in me a passion to do it again…and again. I began to dream bigger, realizing that the success I hoped for was the joy of being immersed in writing, and having people tell me how much they liked the books I wrote. 

Fifteen published novels later, I’m still on the hamster wheel. The only regret I have is that I didn’t persist much earlier. 

My takeaway? If you know someone who is struggling to let their dreams emerge, encourage them. Give them something to dream for.