You’re a writer – you know how it goes. You push and pull and shove your story into a nice straight line, solving problems and ironing out the bumps. And then a character pops up, and the whole thing goes to heck!
So, if you’ve followed along in The Story of Me, you’ll recall that I finally published the book – Adventures of a Sawdust Man.
It was great fun to write, and rewrite, and rewrite, and, well, finally to finish rewriting.
Here’s something I have to admit to you. I’m a little embarrassed, but maybe it will help you, too.
Back at the end of the 90s, my life was an absolute mess. A dreadful divorce, a voice-over career that was stuck in the garage, and a management career that fell straight into the dumpstah. I couldn’t make anything work.
And I mysteriously got the idea that I had somehow screwed up back when I got out of college 20 years earlier. That I should have gone to Hollywood to make my career and fortune, and, that had I done so, my life would not have been the shambles it had become.
I was kind of kicking the can backward down the road, blaming my current failures on an imagined failure 20 years in the past.
That sounds crazy, I know, but it was pervasive – it shaped my every thought.
I bought a partnership in a dreadful little business that failed at every turn, reinforcing the idea that I’d run away from my opportunities when I was out of school now almost 30 years before, and was, in effect, a dud. Thank goodness, the Great Recession put that awful business out of business.
As my world solidified and got better, that imagined failure ceased to be imaginary, and became true to me.
Since then, lo these last fifteen or so years, I’ve been scrambling to make up for lost time, to pull off a creative miracle and prove that, even though I turned my back on the opportunity to be like Steve Martin amd Robin Williams, I am NOT a dud.
I crafted all these websites, all these posts, scratched out these novels – somehow, somehow I can fix it. I’ve learned so much, somehow the Universe will see that I’ve changed… digging in the Unknown mines of the Internet to find the jewel that would restore me to my rightful place as a successful talent, wealthy, famous, etc, etc…
And then, just three weeks ago, I had a sharp and stunning memory. In discovering it, I felt as dumb as a box of rocks.
When I got out of school, way back in the late 70’s, I DID consider a Hollywood career. I remembered that I looked at it long and hard and that I orbited the citadel that was Variety magazine, reading the casting calls and actually driving to their locations.
And I remembered that I made the conscious choice to stay OUT of acting. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was a good imitator, but not a good actor. I could imitate good actors, but I could not act. I decided then that an acting career was not for me.
Whether I could act or not, the notion that I’d later picked up, that I was a Delbert Dumbbutt who somehow managed to miss a golden opportunity, simply wasn’t true.
OMG, you cannot imagine the weight that has lifted off of me, and off of my work!
I got nothing to prove, man. Nothing.
So, now, in the re-rewrite of that book, there is no weight, no pressure to prove that at least I’m a good writer. Now I can just tell the story my characters want me to write. A new one has already popped, completely changing the course of the book!
And yet, and yet, I have started all these websites and all these projects, and I do earn my daily bread as a professional writer. So, all was not in vain.
The message to you, my writerly friend, is to look long and hard at your assumptions, for they may not be what you think!