I still am lazy and have come to both accept and loath my lazy side in equal measure. It is, without a doubt, my greatest enemy when it comes to my writing and my general state of ambitiousness. I am not the first person, nor the last, to claim to have said lazy streak and I know many a writer struggles with whether to chose to write or give in to the temptation to go do something, anything, else when they should be writing.
But now I am trying to get back to writing. I am writing more on this blog and my other blog, the uncool one about my life in the working poor. I have also went back to my outline for a novel I have been toying with writing for like forever. No seriously I had this idea way back when I was in college with was 8 years ago now. To me, that feels like a long time.
But at the same time at this moment my family is going through one of the hardest times we have financially.
To give you a bit of history here, my family moved from Wisconsin to Las Vegas in December. The move was horrible and one of the most challenging experiences of my adult life. We moved for my wife and a job she was offered here. I, in turn, quit my long time insurance job back in Wisconsin with the hope that I would be able to take another good insurance job out here. Well, that hasn't happened yet.
So, we are living on only my wife's income, which is not much, and getting by. I have continued to job search, but am limited by the fact that we have one car in the household and I have one 3 year old at home with me at all times. It has been hard and plenty stressful. Certainly we are not on the street or in a shelter, but we are one unfortunate event from those things right now. It is a precarious position to be in and one I do not enjoy.
Recently my wife and I discussed what to do going forward and it was determined that we were going to try and struggle through one more year until my youngest son, the aforementioned 3 year old, would be able to go to school. This single change would reduce our monthly daycare expense greatly and allow for me to work and actually get ahead. To work now, with the daycare expenses factored in, would only break us even. Daycare costs are the single greatest hindrance to my being able to take a job, as they all seem right now to be so low paying to start.
During this conversation, we also discussed my desire to write again. My wife, bless her, said that writing would now be my full time job. I would be able to work on the long gestating novel and other things like freelance articles. My wife felt that my struggles to find work were a sign that I should not work right now and concentrate on my passion and my writing. I agreed with her, but worried about how we would survive.
However, despite my concerns, it was welcome and exciting news if I am being honest. I would be able to write full time and really for the first time see if I could make a career of it. A few weeks passed and during that time I worked at the novel and at the articles. Progress was being made and I was feeling for the first time that I was on the right path. But then more bad stuff happened.
Our one and only car broke down for the fourth time in six months. As I said, we are living on a knife's edge so in turn we did not have any money in reserve for the cost of the repair. We ended up borrowing the money and now have to pay that back. Another expense on top of the pile we already have.
Now I find myself in a tough spot. Sure I could keep on writing full time and work feverishly on the freelance work and hope to sell something quickly. I could keep working on the novel and get going on a first draft and hope that we are able to keep our heads above water. Or I could put the writing aside and go back to finding a job, possibly two, in the hopes that together my wife and I could dig us out.
I mean of course the second option is the one I am likely to pursue at this moment. I have two small children and as much as I want to show them that you can pursue your dreams, I also do not want them to starve in the process. So the writing is being pushed aside again because I need to help provide for my family. Writing may someday be a means to doing that, but it is not one right now.
That brings me to the point of this post which is how people are able to write and pursue writing while poor. I know I am not the first aspiring writer to start out from a position of poverty and strife. Jack London was poor for much of his life, as was Mark Twain. J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book while working part time teaching English to foreigners and also living on state assistance. The stories of poor writers are many. Some of them achieved great success while still alive and others did not achieve fame until after their death. But the one commonality between them was that they continued writing no matter what was going on in their world.
I admire them for that but also fear in this moment that I lack the fortitude to do the same. I have struggled and been working class poor for six years now. I have been able to make ends meet, but have not been able to get ahead and to enjoy life. It has worn on me and I find myself right now so tired of being this way. I don't want to do it any longer, I want to enjoy my life. To do so, you need money. You just do.
The doubt is hanging over me now, even as I write this. I doubt my abilities as a writer and worry that I am no good and am wasting my time. I doubt whether my family will ever get out from under this black cloud. I doubt I will amount to anything in life. And I wonder whether everyone would be better off without me. (Suicide and suicidal thoughts another common trait of writers, by the way.)
I worry right now that if I go back to work I will stop writing as I did before. That perhaps we will get out of this mess and dare I say become comfortable money wise and I will become content again. If you look to my life, all 36 years of it to this point, you will find that I settle easily. I just do. I know I want more and often times I desire for more. But I never act to get more. It is my fatal flaw and is one of the major contributing factors to why I have suffered financially for these 6 years.
I wonder sometimes what Rowling felt when she sat down in that London coffee shop and wrote Harry Potter. Did she question herself? Did she lose sleep with worry over how she and her small daughter would survive? I am sure she did. But she took the risk and made the brave choice.
I am going back to trying to have it both ways, working a normal job and writing on the side. It is, sadly, the only way this will work. It is the only way for us to survive.
My stomach is in knots right now and has been for at least a week, if not more. I can feel the stress and it hangs on me like a heavy, baggy, sweater right now. All I think about is money and our lack of it. Every time I look at my kids I feel the stress and I worry I am failing them. I see the life I want for them and how it clashes so dramatically with the life they live now. I feel responsible to them, to their future and I feel guilty for even wanting to pursue writing and spending what precious free time I have on it.
If I were smart I would have pursued writing before they were born. But I didn't. Now I find myself in a similar position to Rowling, a parent, middle aged, poor, and having a vision for a novel. It wasn't easy for her and it won't be for me. I think of the millions of other people who desire to be the next great American novelist and it seems that much more daunting to me. I am one of many.
I have some choices to make here in the weeks and months ahead. In my mind I know this is my last chance to make something of myself. My last chance to pursue a career I will be proud of and find great joy in. I can't afford to screw it up. I know it all the way to my bones.
This post kind of lost its way here it seems. I meant to talk more about how the great writers overcame the poverty they found themselves in. Instead this became all about my own struggles. I suppose that is the point as this blog is about me. But I feel you got more of the internal struggles in my head right now than I intended. But it felt good to get it out. It felt good to put it into words and really work through, while I was writing, how I was feeling.
I do intend to continue writing. I do intend to write the novel, although it will take me forever to do part time. But I also do not intend to let my family sink financially due to me being selfish and not willing to sacrifice. I have to try and have it both ways right now and work for the best. Writing while poor sucks, but in the end it is better than not writing at all. It is, in the end, what I need to keep me from giving up. It keeps me sane. As does this blog. I need that as I am so scared right now.
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