A Work in Progress

(For those of you unfamiliar with the term, "mid-life kicker" refers to a marketing effort designed to boost sales of a product in the midst of its lifecycle before a new version of it is released.)

Much ado has been made of over the concept of the "mid-life crisis". The very term conjures images of sudden urges to purchase sports cars and engage in messy divorces. While neither of these are necessarily positive results, I think the overall concept is worthy of consideration.

Unfortunately, the "crisis" aspect of it has overshadowed the underlying principle behind these life events. I use the word "events" in the plural, because it seems to me that most people only think of it happening once or twice when the indivudual in questions reaches what is considered "middle age" (usually somewhere between the 40th and 50th birthday milestones). In reality, it is really about evaluating one's life and deciding whether it is still a good fit for the person they are on that day.

I was thinking about it, and I think most people do this about every ten years (give or take a year or two) anyway. It's only when there are rippling negative (or perceived as negative) side effects that it gets termed a "crisis".

Consider the following: At 20, many of us are finally determining what our final major in college will be. At 30, our careers are finally starting become established and there are probably the pitter-patter of one or more pairs of feet around the house. At 40, career paths tend to be more established and our children are on their way to becoming more self-sufficient. At 50, children are leaving (or have left) the nest, leaving us, once again, with only ourselves and our partner.

It is not surprisingly that at these milestones in one's life, we take a hard look at where we are, where we are going, and where we wanted to be. Life has a way of happening to us when we're not looking. For myself, I had always hoped to be a film director, screenwriter, or novelist (pick up to three!). When my son was born, most of that went to the wayside as I focused on his care, feeding, and education. Was it a fair trade? No question. No regrets there.

A few years ago, though, I had the realization that—aside the frequent project plan and occasional professional paper—my fiction output (if you don't include project plans!) had dropped close enough to zero that it didn't matter. One of my first reactions was "Oh, but I'm getting to be too old start again now." Uh huh. Dear Abby has a relatively frequent response in her column to people who ask about whether they should go to medical school (or a similar long-term endeavor) and are concerned about how old they will be when they're done. She always tells them--and correctly so--that they'll still be that age whether they choose to tackle that challenge or not.

Two things happened. The first one was an unpleasant work-related situation that arose and I finally decided with deal with it by forming the incident into a scene for a story. The second one was that a very good friend of mine (the infamous Elemental Mom) handed me The Artist's Way and said, "Here. Do it. No arguments." (Okay, it wasn't quite like that, but close.) I resisted at first, but over the course of a year I did make my way through the entire book. Since then, I have mostly managed to adhere to the "a page a day" regimen.

In the end, what I really got was a (much-needed) mid-life kick in the backside. Everyone should be so lucky!

"Writers really take their worst shellacking from other writers."
E. B. White (On Writing [1990])

Yes, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything to this blog. I don't have any good excuses, so I won't bother to try to make up any. I have been properly chastized, and I promised that I would try very hard to post something at least three times a week, even if I have to resort to taking a quotation from one of my books and working from that.

I have been editing the first draft of "Building Baby Brother" based on feedback from the people who have read it. I forgot how hard I fight the process of starting to edit a story. (This one is particularly problematic because I received conflicting opinions on the best way to handle one item in the story.) Once I get started, I'm fine. It's a lot like many writing projects, though. I remember reading or hearing an interview several years ago with a writer who said that her house was never cleaner than when she was avoiding the start of a writing project. A lot of writers I know suffer from the same syndrome. One theory is that if you never get it written, it never gets criticized. I can understand that.

Which is why I tend to avoid formal writing classes, workshops, and groups. I have received some useful feedback from these, but more often than not, I have found them more frustrating than productive. My primary goal when writing is to just tell a good story. I figure that the majority of readers will judge that far above any clever use of metaphor or deeply symbolic imagery. I'm not saying that these things aren't important to a story. It's just that I've found that a lot of "serious" writers get so caught up in the trappings of the writing, that the story seems to become secondary. Those other elements are important, but I've seen too many stories come out of writing classes that are mostly style and very little substance. I know some readers appreciate those types of stories, but they're not my style.

That's it for this time. Time to get back on the path.