when I was… seven? eight? years old, I attended something called the “Young Authors Conference.”
I don’t have a ton of memories from the event, but two scenes do come to mind:
- rushing to write my book very last minute I all but plagiarized a story I had recently read and loved, featuring four cousins that somehow were identical enough (identical twins marrying identical twins for parents???) to switch places and get up to all kinds of shenanigans and hijinks. I loved their shenanigans and hijinks, so I assumed my peers would love reading about similar shenanigans and hijinks.
- volunteering to read my book aloud to those peers at the conference and coming to the realization that…. no one else was into the hijinks.
now, to be kind to baby claysad, I was seven or eight, so I’m sure the prose was lackluster at best. but in retrospect, these memories perhaps reveal early signs of neurodivergence:
- putting even things I was super into (like writing) off until the last minute.
- sharing a piece of myself with my peers only to realize after the fact that that piece was… different.
I don’t remember that difference bothering me too much, in most cases? I think? though childhood is a long way away at this point, and I’m viewing these memories through the lens of adulthood, so it’s often hard to recall their precise emotional valence.
there is one such memory that I carried around for a long time where the emotions were super clear, and they were not good.
🎶
at summer (church) camp on year, there was a talent show where two kids sang a rather operatic piece in front of an audience full of middle schoolers to a chorus of laughter.
I don’t remember whether I laughed or thought it was funny, but I do remember later singing with my (all afab) friends in our “manly voices,” which we all thought was hilarious.
on the last day of camp, parents were invited to the final dinner and chapel service, and me and my three boisterous friends decided we wanted to see if we could perform in “manly voices” for the entire cafeteria.
the camp director agreed, and I held the mic while we belted out a popular camp hymn at the tops of our lungs.
I don’t remember the audience response, but I do remember the look on the director’s face when I turned back to hand him the mic and excitedly ask if we could sing another.
“No.”
it’s hard to describe exactly what his face looked like, but I can perfectly describe what I felt in that moment: shame.
I immediately felt that what we had done was wrong, and it was only then that I realized, “hey, that might have been bullying.”
I don’t remember the names of the two kids who had sung so beautifully at the talent show, or the names of most of my accomplices, or my parents’ reactions to our little stunt, but I do remember those feelings of shame and deep regret that hit me like a brick the instant I saw the director’s face.
now, to be kind to little claysad and friends, we were kids (preteens? teens?), and there was an entire table of adults behind us as we made fools of… ourselves? the opera kids? both?
no one stopped us mid-song to tell us, “hey, that’s mean, quit it.” so maybe the director just thought we were annoying and loud.
but I carried those feelings of shame and regret well into adulthood. frankly, it’s only been the last couple of years (and remember, I’m forty now) that I have looked back and thought, “oh wow, maybe I DID struggle with social cues as a kid.”
*Curb Your Enthusiasm theme plays*
🙃
ANYWAY.
all of that to say, for awhile I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.
(then I wanted to be a band director, then a professor, then an event planner, then Tina Fey’s character on 30 Rock a tv screenwriter, then a technical writer, then a professor again, then a writer again.)
I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t want to be one of those starving artists you see so much in pop culture depictions of writers. even as a kid and young adult, I was like “hmm, that kind of struggle is not for me,” which was further exacerbated by my year of double underemployment in retail and tutoring after getting my Bachelor’s degree.
now I am a writer of sorts (an instructional designer), and the struggle has still found me. not exactly the kind of struggle I envisioned a fiction writer or screenwriter would endure: waiting tables or working retail by day and scribbling furiously by night, getting too little sleep and drinking too much coffee.
instead, I work a salaried nine-to-five, complete with benefits, where my primary task is indeed writing. there’s even some storytelling and character creation involved!
but I have not written a single word of fiction since landing my full-time gig.
that’s four years.
it makes me sad.
😞
where am I going with all this? I’m not really sure.
I think the tl;dr of this extremely long and winding story is that I think that “starving artist” meme (in the *exasperated sigh* Richard Dawkins sense of the word1) has done me and a lot of other people a great disservice.
it convinced me that the only two ways to be an artist were to either: a.) forgo financial security until you “make it big” or b.) basically work two jobs (a day job and “artist”) until you “make it big.”
now, I don’t want to downplay the absolute DEARTH of support for the arts in this country. frankly, that’s a whole other post that maybe I’ll write someday. but tl;dr, lack of support for the arts means that the only people who get to be artists AND not worry about finances are either wealthy, lucky, or (usually) both.
but, like, I work a nine-to-five and I still worry about finances. most people do, thanks to capitalism, and most of those folks are not artists.
but lots of them are! lots of people are artists of varying sorts, and while they do worry about finances, lots of folks do still manage to make it their main source of financial support.
and that’s where I hope I’m headed.
maybe I’ll get back into fiction writing, but until then, I’m happy just making silly little designs for silly little folks.
🤪
footnotes
- but also, fuck that guy. ↩︎