Category: Writing
Thursday, Jun 30, 2011 | Money, Writing |
I made a budget earlier this week. There are certain fixed expenses that I cover every month, out of my writing. I had a sneaking suspicion that output was higher than input, and unsustainable, so I checked. This probably sounds ridiculous–shouldn’t I know exactly how much is going in and coming out? Yes, I should.
Looking at finances, for me, takes facing some demons. Sometimes I wonder if this is my last frontier, a foggy wasteland into which I’m afraid to venture. My parents fought a lot about money when they were married (to each other, I mean). One of the things I’ve appreciated about Kevin is that we spend money quite similarly, and almost always have similar financial goals. But the truth is that I also step back a lot, or worse, close my eyes and just say, you go ahead, honey, and make the decisions. I’d rather not know.
It’s strange. This desire not to know. To be deliberately in the dark.
But I have my own bank account, too. And my own expenses–largely childcare. And my own income. Which is sporadic and not-to-be-relied-upon and if I had to support our family on it, we would live in someone’s basement. Maybe yours. You’d have to feed us, too.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Tracking a path toward financial non-ignorance. My conclusion is that I will need to earn more money this year. I haven’t got enough socked away to cover the truly high costs of childcare. But without childcare, I am looking after these kids by myself, and there is no way to look after kids full-time and to write, too. Or to do anything that requires being out of the home, away from the kids. Want to know why parents are so happy about proposals like all-day every-day kindergarten? Check out the cost of childcare; which, by the way, is a pretty underfunded vocation, given that for childcare to make sense, it has to cost less than what the parents are earning by not doing the childcare themselves. There’s my feminist rant for the day.
Anyway, my brainstorming went something like this:
ways to earn $ – ??
doula’ing?
writing
babysitting
grants
Can you see why I fantasize about being a midwife? I think it’s the stable steady work that appeals as much as anything. If I were a midwife, I could join a clinic, I could practice, and I would know how much money would be coming in every single month. None of the options above offer any sliver of stability, at least not as I am currently practicing any of them.
A former boss of mine, who is a writer, made a very funny/for serious flier advertising his services: “January Blowout Sale. Book writer now and save 20%.”
I’m wondering … should I do something of the sort? Pitch, advertise, apply? (All of which take significant time and energy, too, of course). Or should I just keep doing what I’ve always done, which is to carve out bits of time, write and work, and sometimes get lucky–just often enough to keep the bank account at a slightly stable level. It seems such a haphazard way to construct a career. And that’s what I want–a career, not a hobby.
:::
Note: beautiful photo of clover and shoe-print by AppleApple.
Friday, Jun 17, 2011 | Big Thoughts, Friends, Spirit, Word of the Year, Writing |
I keep starting this post, then erasing the words and trying again. I’ve been wondering how best to express my feeling of gratitude for the support and luck that make possible the arc of my days.
I am grateful to be able to send my children to school and nursery school where they are nurtured by caring teachers. I am grateful that I have a babysitter who picks my youngest up from nursery school three days a week, walks patiently home with him, feeds him lunch, plays with him, and loves him, so that I can write (that she happens to be a qualified teacher in her country of origin, who speaks five languages, is our fortune, too, though I’m rooting for her to get her Canadian qualifications so many more children can benefit from her gifts).
I am grateful to have a grant, and an advance, that allows me to focus on my fiction writing (and pay for said nursery school and babysitting time). I am grateful my husband has a job that covers our household expenses, so that my grant/advance can go toward writing time.
I am grateful for my family’s willingness to make room for my crazy triathlon project, and the countless hours of training it’s required (hours from which they are excluded).
I am grateful to live in a country with universal health care.
I am grateful for clean water from our taps, for fresh ingredients from which to prepare healthy meals, for the shelter and space of our home and yard, for safe sidewalks, and a community-oriented neighbourhood.
I am grateful for all of these things, while knowing that my fortune is neither deserved nor earned, and that the individual pursuits of art and athleticism are gifts. They are not mine for the taking. They could not exist without the offerings of many others, and of even larger, structural offerings that are pure luck: where I was born and to whom. I wonder sometimes how the relative few of us can bear to live with such wealth, when so many live with less than a little. How can I?
What I’m saying is that my gratitude is mixed with guilt, and questioning. What luxury–to train my body to complete an arbitrary task that has nothing to do with real survival. What luxury–to sit and to think and to create in repose, without anxiety or fear or threat. Are my luxuries just for me? Is that how I’m using them, and if so, does that not express greed rather than gratitude?
:::
I’ve noticed an uptick in visitors reading this blog, and it would be a pleasure to hear your voices (thanks, Rebecca, for the inspiration: your post on engagement made me want to invite more engagement and conversation, here, too). So, what are your thoughts on being grateful/guilty? How do you take the luxury of your individual gifts and use them to satisfy something greater than your own comforts and desires?
Wednesday, Jun 15, 2011 | Sick, Summer, Swimming, Writing |
The child not pictured is inside, upstairs, huddled in his bed, too sick even to enjoy unlimited access to the computer. So we aren’t off to swim in a lake, as planned. If I don’t get another chance to use the wetsuit before the race on Sunday, well, so be it. I’ll swim on Sunday. The sun is shining, the sky is bright, the girls talked all the way home from school (and held hands), and the supper menu is enticing. It is based around the chicken stock I’ve been brewing all day: hot and sour soup for those of us so inclined, and miso for everyone else, with pasta salad on the side.
re writing: The last story didn’t get finished today, but it got continued, and that was all I could ask of my weary brain. I’ve noticed myself tending to muck around on these last few writing days and suddenly gain inspiration with seventeen minutes left on the clock (avoidance is not my usual style, but with this story I’ve begun to appreciate the kick-in-the-pants of working under pressure).
Tuesday, Jun 14, 2011 | The Juliet Stories, Writing |
Today I am supposed to be writing. I am very nearly done reconstructing several stories in the early section of my Juliet Stories; but it has been much more taxing than anticipated. It’s not been hard work, exactly, but work that makes me impatient and mildly anxious. The early section of Juliet belongs to the book as it was originally conceived, only fragments of which still remain. I have reimagined these stories more times than I can count. There remain lasting sentences and phrases repurposed for different contexts. It’s dizzying.
I feel like I’m eating leftovers for the tenth day in a row. I’ve had this meal before. I can eat it cold, or heat it up, or add some hot sauce, or wrap it in a tortilla, but dammit, I know exactly what I’m eating, and I’m so very very tired of it. But if a friend came over, and I wrapped some up for her, she would probably think it tasted awesome. Know what I mean?
I’m down to the nitty-gritty, to the less-than-glamorous, stuck-in-the-kitchen part of the process. I accept it.
Here’s what I hope is happening: that I’m transforming these leftovers into a really fantastic meal that I’ll get to share with a tableful of welcome company. And it will all be worth it, even though the kitchen is getting hot, and the onions are just shy of burnt, and the sun is shining, and I’d really really really like to run outside and play.
Friday, Jun 10, 2011 | Chores, Kids, Mothering, The Juliet Stories, Work, Writing |
Ever feel like you’re just not into the domestic necessities? I can usually find some smidgen to enjoy in some portion of the daily chores that Must Be Done. But not right now.
Right now, due to soccer-all-the-time, I am washing dishes in a grumpy stupor after 9pm. “Remember when I got to wash dishes right after supper while listening to ‘As It Happens’?” I said to Kevin last night, who was also in the kitchen, putting together lunches for school. “Who knew that was such a treat?”
And hanging laundry–an often peaceful activity, a moment of quiet in a noisy day–right now, feels like a relentless intrusion on my time. There’s so much of it and so many stages to the doing of it: gathering, washing, carrying the basket up and down stairs, hanging inside or outside, gathering, folding. The only thing I refuse to do is to put away the stacks of clothes neatly piled and arranged from youngest to oldest, on my bed. C’mon. It’s the least they can do.
Even cooking is not drawing me these days. I haven’t baked bread in over a week. I’ve been stocking up at the half-off shelf at our nearest grocery store (and because our grocery store is frequented by a lot of students, the half-off bread is usually the best they sell: multi-grain or spelt or Red Fife wheat).
I haven’t baked a cookie, square, or cake in ages. I offered my two youngest a half-bag of cheesies to snack on while we sat waiting in the hallway for AppleApple to be done her final piano lesson. I’d assumed we’d be alone, because the music school is pretty much shut down, but of course there was a mother across from us, watching my offspring coat themselves in sticky orange powder. I pretended no shame.
Maybe I wasn’t even pretending, come to think of it.
I am consumed, right now, by two major projects. One is the triathlon, which will happen next weekend (not this one). I am training heavily, and it is eating a great deal of my time, mentally and physically. What I’ll do after it is over, I just cannot fathom. I can’t really think that far. I love the early mornings, but they take a toll. I would like to get together with friends and enjoy a drink of an evening, again, for example. But meantime, I am aimed like an arrow at a target, with a focus I just can’t turn off.
My other major target, on which I feel just as significantly and undistractedly aimed, is my Juliet Stories, several of which I am reworking in quite radical ways. I am rolling with ideas, especially after a conversation this morning with my editor, and trying to be patient and to work within the limits of the time that is put aside for writing work. I am grateful to Kevin, who is taking over everything this weekend, so that I can write.
And so the kids are eating cheesies, and I am resenting the laundry, and we are doing a lot of last-minute barbequeing.
I just realized something. It’s not pretending. There’s no shame. I’ve lost whatever guilt I once had, as a mother, about pursuing interests that don’t revolve around my children and my household. Right now, I am wired tight as can be, focused, excited, energized, exhausted, stretched, and it’s all good.
Friday, Jun 3, 2011 | Kids, Publicity, Publishing, The Juliet Stories, Writing |
My next book exists in a publisher’s catalogue. Look for it on pages 22 and 23, House of Anansi. My picture is in there too (does it look too serious? too intense? too “brooding-writer-who-would-be-no-fun-at-a-party”? Maybe I should send them a different photo for the cover).
The irony, of course, is that I continue to polish this new book, so for me, it’s not finished enough to exist anywhere; the catalogue copy, to me, reads like a birth announcement made at 34 weeks gestation. I never named my babies in utero, and always felt a bit superstitious about pre-birth baby showers. Let’s get this baby born, bathed, and bundled before sharing the good news. But how done is done? I remember a funny conversation with the doctor who oversaw the early months of my first pregnancy. I said, “So when I get through the first trimester, I can stop worrying, right?” (I was terribly anxious about miscarrying). And she gave me an odd look: “Um, I’m not sure you ever stop worrying,” she said gently. Riiiiight.
So I suppose, if conflating book-production with having children (a facetious comparison, let’s be honest), it stands to reason that even with the last “t” crossed and “i” dotted, joy will continue to mingle with unease.
The other morning, we were reading an article in the newspaper about a man who is training for a traithlon. It’s part of a regular weekly series: the paper profiles someone relatively well-known and a trainer helpfully critiques his/her exercise plan. I was shocked by how little training this man was doing, and how confident he sounded, and Albus thought that the paper should come and interview me instead: “You should be in the newspaper, Mom.” I explained that the fellow was being profiled not for his excellent triathlon-training, but because he was relatively well-known. But, I said, when my new book comes out, we probably will be able to read some things about me in some newspapers.
The kids were blown away by the idea. That’s when it struck me: Albus and AppleApple were 2 and 14 months, respectively, when Hair Hat came into existence. They had zero awareness of their mother being anything other than their mother. It was news to everyone that, in fact, I’d been in the newspaper when Hair Hat came out, and they thought this was just plain awesome.
But dancing oneself into the public eye involves grabbing for a double-edged sword. I was fortunate enough to read multiple positive reviews of Hair Hat before the first negative review came in, several months post-publication. It gutted me. (Obviously, I recovered). So that’s what I explained to the kids: when the new book gets reviewed, we all have to pray that it falls into the hands of readers who appreciate it. Because no book will please everyone, and there’s much luck-of-the-draw fate that can befall a book. Such is the way of art, and individuality, and taste. Even positive reviews almost always highlight some small flaw, as if to note: nothing’s perfect. Fair enough. Nothing is.
I think this sobered the kids up a bit. Me, too, but for different reasons. Last time around, it was really just me who was affected by the publicity process. I could turn away and bury myself in my babies’ oblivious needs. I identified myself, even in my own head, as “mother,” not “writer,” and that comforted me. This time around, it’s different. I’ve got no babies, nor have I the prospect of more. Instead, I’ve got some interested parties tagging along for the ride. And I’m beginning to wonder: what’s the tipping point at which I become more working-mother and less stay-at-home mother?
It feels like I’ve metamorphosed without noticing, during this long stretch between books.
