Timing
Posted on April 9, 2008
Filed Under marriage, career, bat-ass crazy, debt, bitching and moaning, My Better Half, Anxiety, challenges, rejection |
So what does a twice rejected nascent writer do after the receiving the latest in a series of loud and echoing No’s? Well, of course she gets right back in the saddle and fires off a few short stories to five different literary magazines and makes sure she enters a couple writing contests and decides that she didn’t really want to go to creative writing school anyway because why should she have to pay some published professor to allow her to write in their esteemed presence? Instead, she will find someone to pay her to write which, while not the point of this writing thing, would be nice and might save her having to go back to landscape design or waitressing or prostitution. (She will get around to being this kind of optimistic and assertive just as soon as she’s finished licking wounds and taking a full moment to recover from her disappointment because right now it’s all coming down around her shoulders. And while she feels like making absolutely no decisions in her current fragile state it would seem that Her Better Half would pick this very week to discuss refinancing the house and her need to go back to work and otherwise kick her while she’s down because what’s a little disappointment without someone around to say,
“Okay, are you satisfied NOW that you’ll never get paid to write? Because it’s good time to give up that pipe dream and go get yourself a real job that starts at 9 and ends at 2 and allows for teacher-work days and sick-kid days and whole weeks off while I travel to glamorous places like Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and gives you the summers free so we don’t have to pay for childcare and of course offers dental and benefits because, after all, such a job that pays more than $9 an hour must exist, you just haven’t looked hard enough, in fact you haven’t looked at all.”
From her defensive crouch, she shot back,
“Right, sorry, I must have been too busy preparing meals and supervising homework and completing Ben Franklin projects and schlepping our kids to piano and baseball and tennis and coaching soccer and making sure there’s food in the fridge and paying all the bills on time and shoveling the back porch and mowing the lawn and stripping wallpaper and painting the interior of the entire fucking house and posting five days a week on my blog and writing a novel and volunteering in the each child’s classroom and helping Gladys pay her rent to have properly looked for a job that could fit nicely into the 15 minutes of me-time I enjoy on the couch each night post-8 p.m. when the kids have been bathed and read to and tucked in multiple times and the cat has finished vomiting up a hairball on the carpet and the five loads of daily laundry are folded and put away because that’s exactly when I feel like kicking it into high gear and getting off my lazy ass to go out and earn myself a living because all this other stuff is just joy and sunshine, hardly a day at all.”
She can tell that today is going to require some serious house cleaning therapy. The Windex is out, the murky glass just asking for a good spring shining. Did she mention that all of her friends, neighbors and acquaintances pay $300 twice a year to have their windows cleaned? She’ll let that fact speak for itself.
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11 Responses to “Timing”
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Sounds to me like YBH is volunteering to do the above-mentioned activities while you traipse off to the office and then visit the spa and have cocktails with your coworkers after hours.
You are clearly doing far too much for one human woman. If the kids drop all their after school activities… wait, scratch that, just sell the kids off. Give the husband away. That takes care of the classroom volunteering, most of the cleaning, bedtime routines and four out of five loads of laundry. Then come and have cocktails with me. Hell, I’ll get you drunk and make you marry me with that kind of energy!
So what you’re saying is that you DO have some free time?
Maddening. They don’t get it, do they?
But out of all of that whole crappy montage, promise that you’ll hold on tightly to your dream of being a paid writer. You’re good, very good, and it would be a waste to get discouraged about that. I’m glad you jumped right back and sent out some stories.
Hang in there.
Moshizzle, that’s quite an offer. Be careful what you wish for!
Jennnifer H, thanks for supporting my dream which is looking more and more like folly these days.
You could go be a Lowe’s hottie…
Well. A little housecleaning therapy may be just what the situation calls for–and the clean windows will most definitely provide a clearer perspective.
You totally kill me
You know, I’m an absolutely superb window cleaner. My mother used to pay me five cents and hour to clean all the hundreds of glass panes that are typical to homes in the tropics, so you KNOW that I come cheap. For you Cce, I’ll even throw in a discount.
On a more serious note, may I tell you that you are doing way too much. You know this already. Something has got to give Cce. THOUGH NOT YOUR WRITING. Whatever the better half might say (and I’ll take that awful remark he spewed forth about your dreams as something that was said in a moment of extreme anger), you’ve got talent. I’m like Jennifer in feeling that you’ve done the correct thing by sending out more samples and not letting this disappointment stop you.
I will say this, I’d find it very hard to take but I would forgo the pleasure of your daily blog entries if this affords you any extra time for yourself. I’m not going anywhere. I doubt you’d lose any of your other faithful readers. I can think of a host of other ways to cut down on what infringes upon your time but you’d have to be willing to give up certain things Cce… You know where to find me if you should wish to talk.
I’m beaming happy thoughts at you. You’re wonderfully talented, you are an amazing writer, you blow my reading socks off… I suppose I could go on and on but I’ll save some of the nice comments for your hubby to utter all on his own.
i’m so the wrong person to talk to about all of this!
hi c,
how does one email you?
in response to your last comment–
just so you know: nobody’s life is perfect.
~chesca
cce,
if you want proof that things do turn around, take note of the fact that this time, I’m under chesca.
I have learned this about life: every stage has at least one thing in it that is worth reveling in and one thing worthy of an ulcer. It seems to me that part of the trick is to know where to focus in order to preserve your sanity. You are young, fit, wicked smart …. all that might be worth thinking about from time to time. Save the “what’s wrong” notices for when you begin to think that you’re all that and need to be brought down a peg. Finally, at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark card, never let go of hope - without it life is hopeless. Don’t make me look foolish here - I’m declaring in a public place that you are going to do great things.
cce–
First of all, you are NOT a nascent writer. You are a writer.
Second, I’m with Jennifer H. I’m so awed and proud that your response was to send out queries.
Third, remember that admission committees are highly political. They’re not looking for the best writer, and they are using applicants as weapons of war with each other.
Fourth, tell your Better (ha!) Half to cram it. Does he really say those awful things or are you using him as a mouthpiece for all your doubts?