Bird by Bird

About six months ago I asked a local writer acquaintance to meet me for coffee. I wanted to get to the bottom of a problem I have had for a few years. As many of you know, I’ve been writing a “book” off and on for quite a while. And I’ve “submitted” articles for publication to some local magazines. All of this has resulted in nada. I thought perhaps I was out of the loop on some publishers’ preference for submissions and so I was being overlooked for that reason alone. You know, like I was submitting my resume for an interview typed in Comic Sans.

We sat down together– my friend, my toddler, my toddler’s chocolate tort, and myself– and I tried to articulate my question. What I actually communicated was a more adult version of, “Nobody likes me. wah! They like you! How do I become likable like you?!” I explained everything I’ve tried and hoped for the golden nugget of wisdom that would get me published… And my friend replied, “It seems like you’re doing everything right. It’s hard to get published the first time.” Honesty is discouraging.

So, I stopped trying to submit things for publication for a while while I tried to figure out what I was trying to say anyways. And the more I tried to pin it down, the more limiting myself became suffocating. I want to say something about everything. I love many things, and I love them all the same! How can I position myself as a sewing writer in a sewing magazine or on a crafting blog when I am going to want to write something about the birth I attended last month? How can I write about my feminist views when I will turn around and want to write about my garden and girl scout troop too? I have subject ADHD, so I needed a different goal. I waited a little longer while I tried to come up with a new goal.

Then something great happened. I finally discovered what I wanted to do for a living and it wasn’t write for a magazine. I want to be a Lamaze teacher and doula so I could help women have the safe, secure and healthy birth they were made to have. I began working towards that end…. but just three months into training and a few measly blog posts about birth advocacy later and I wanted to write a post about the what it’s like to have a traveling husband….. That does not fit into the theme “to brave birth.” Again I was discouraged.

On Saturday we took a family trip to the Main Branch of the Library. I searched Google for “top books for women business owners” and in the article I clicked was listed Bird by Bird, the book on writing by Anne Lamott. I picked it up. In the chapter “Getting Started” the question I asked my writer friend was staring back at me…. How do I get published? What’s the trick? Am I missing something, do I need an agent or something? Some inroad to the club?

“The problem that comes up over and over again is these people want to be published. They kind of wasn’t to write, but they really want to be published. You’ll never get to where you want to be that way, I tell them. There is a door we all want to walk through, and writing can help you find it and open it. Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up. But publishing won’t do any of those things; you’ll never get in that way.” -Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird.

I have had the wrong goal. I wanted to start a business of writing, without letting myself say all the things I really wanted to say. I have to just let myself write the things I have in my head. Blogs are nice because I can click “publish” and it’s published, so I’m going to cheat on that part and use this web domain I own to publish my voice. But I am going to work on changing from someone who kind of wants to write, to someone who writes. Even if no one is listening but me.