Backup Plans

Sometimes its so damn frustrating to know what you want. There are days when I envy my friends for just being able to do the "college thing". It all seems so ridiculously easy. They all get to go to school for four years, pick a major, and follow their yellow-brick-road of a career path to wherever they want to go. They get to go to med school. They get to apply for the law program. It seems unfair for the rest of us that have "unconventional" career choices. What guidebook is there for us to follow?

There aren't pretty office complexes for writers. We don't get to sign up with big brand names and impersonal corporations. We don't have the job security, the HMO's, the pensions, or the 401k's. There's no set formula to do well in our industry. No guarantee that with good grades and extracurricular activities, we'll graduate with job offers and proud parents, with a sense of where we're headed, or even the promise that we'll like it when we get there. There are no try-outs, no hopeful gateways, and the entry-level jobs that one might work up from are few and far between. There aren't any support groups either - and writing is a lonely affair. Working on a book is nothing like blogging. The blog community has the benefits of instant validation on any and all content. For the lucky few of us that have a small number of dedicated readers we are able to receive immediate feedback, (and most of us survive off of this drip-line of positive reinforcement). Unfortunately with a book you're up against 65,000 words without any kind of a support system. And that can be pretty daunting. It can also make you reconsider what the hell it is you're trying to do exactly.

My mother wanted to be a writer too. She fell in love with words the same way I did, through literature and music, and like me, she never really let go of the idea. She worked hard at it, as she does with everything in her life, and sold a few short stories here and there but nothing further came of it. She's a testament to the reality that the creative industries have more than enough fresh blood each year, to glide over all the Mid-Lister's that didn't make it as big as they had planned. Now, at 44 years old, she's going into a nursing program, finally pursuing her only other passion. She's my reminder of how cruel life can be to those that fall between the cracks and it makes me wonder if I'm not setting myself up to fail.

Now that I'm here I can't imagine really doing anything else - the standard fall-backs of journalism and teaching don't appeal to me very much - but I can't help worrying about what happens if I'm not part of that lucky (but minuscule) percentage that actually manages to get published, let alone figure out a way to make a living off of this writing business. I know that all I can do is try my hardest and hope for the best outcome but it seems like I have so much riding on all this now, I can't help but let my rational side suggest that I might be making a mistake. I have a fiance with whom I hope to build a comfortable (read: not lacking) sort of lifestyle and I wonder if I ought to pursue a more established type of career. I know that he wants me to do what makes me happy but I refuse to be one of those women that stays home and lives off their husbands income. I wasn't raised that way - and frankly I'd probably go crazy. So what it really all comes down to is - if not this, then what?