Before I started designing jewelry, I wrote fiction.

I’ve been writing fiction since I was a little kid, but I was often told cautionary tales about starving artists, and about how statistically unlikely it would be for me to be able to make a living as a writer. It’s not that writing was looked down on, in my family. But it was a hobby…not to be mistaken for a real job.

Because I thought I couldn’t have my first choice, I picked several other careers, that were supposed to be more practical and promising. I changed my major several times before I finally settled for Communication (of all the safe, practical choices that seemed more likely to guarantee a “steady” job, it seemed like the one most closely related to writing. English was far too general and liberal-artsy. The standard joke was, before you could be awarded a liberal arts degree, you had to practice asking, “Do you want paper or plastic?” and “Would you like fries with that?” so that you could get a job after graduation.)

I hated Communication. I left school halfway through my senior year. Worst of all, I couldn’t write anymore. I worried that it might be permanent. (It wasn’t. I’ve learned that if I have too much I have to read, and too many papers to write, the ability temporarily goes away. Once I have less work to do, it eventually comes back. This time, it took six months.)

I began a series of misadventures, working the revolting, dead-end types of jobs you get when you don’t finish your degree: I was a waitress, a secretary, a retail employee, and eventually, a temp. I hated every minimum-wage minute.

Finally, I wised up and went back to school. This time, I majored in English. It might be hard to make a living as a writer, but by then I figured it couldn’t be any harder than what I was doing instead.

I took every writing course that was available. Some of the workshop courses could be taken twice for additional credits. I took them twice. I went to every writing conference, every off-campus writing workshop and seminar I could find. I took writing courses from other majors: television and radio writing, speech writing, script writing. I had a collection of short stories I wrote for workshop classes, and worked on six different novels during my free time.

Then a close family member nearly died, and was in critical condition for two months. I spent eight to ten hours a day at the hospital. Afterward, I became a caregiver. I could not write during this time. The momentum I had built slammed to a halt. Senior year came, and I scheduled classes that required too much reading and writing. I read an average of 500 pages per week, and wrote an average of one ten-page paper per week, while still being a caregiver. I continued being unable to write. Finally, I graduated with degrees in both English and Communication. Three months after graduation, I became a 24/7 caregiver when the same family member nearly died a second time, and became fully paralyzed. I continued to care for her for four more years.

During this time, I was completely unable to write. I tried, but the quality wasn’t there. Usually, when I review my daily output, there’s something worth keeping. During this time, then approaching seven years…there wasn’t.

Something interesting happened instead. I had always done beadwork, as a hobby. I found that I could design, even though I couldn’t write. Instead of being a verbally-oriented artist who worked with words, I became a more visually-oriented artist instead, working with pictures, colors and shapes. During my time as a caregiver, and afterward up until now, these skills continued to improve. I still worried that I would never be able to write again, but at least I had new abilities that seemed almost as good.

Every now and then, I tried to write. In my first years as an English major, I was able to write easily, and well, every day. But getting started again after such a long time seemed impossible. The quality wasn’t improving, no matter how many times I kept trying. Another close family member became ill and needed care. Ten years after I stopped being able to write, I still wasn’t able to start again. I realized there was a real chance I wouldn’t be able to write anymore.

I wrote every day anyway. It was always poor quality, there was never anything good worth keeping, but I knew the only way I could ever get better was to keep trying. The other family member died.

Two years later, I noticed that I was beginning to write better. Later that year, in October 2009, I registered for NaNoWriMo. (For those unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, a world-wide writing challenge held every year during November. The goal is to write a novel at least 50,000 words long in 30 days. Anyone can participate – experienced writers and beginners alike.) This wasn’t the first time I attempted NaNo. But it was the first time I met the goal.

By the end of the month, my word count reached 96,000 words. (The minimum goal is 50,000, but many people continue to write well past 50K.) My novel wasn’t finished, but I needed to take a break. There were problems with the plot that I needed to think about for a while before I would know what to do about them. (If something really isn’t working, it doesn’t help to force things. That way lies awkward, stilted, stiff, and just plain bad, writing.)

In November 2010, during NaNo, I decided to use the month’s 50,000 word goal to write new material to add to, and hopefully finish, the novel. One day before the month ended, I finished the novel with 52,000 new words, for a total of 148,000. I never did work out the plot problems from the year before until that final day, when suddenly, the solution became obvious during the final 2,000 word sprint.

After that, I knew it was only a matter of time before I stopped trying to make a business of beadwork, and returned full-time to writing. For a while, I tried to do both. On the days I wrote, I felt guilty that I wasn’t in the bead studio, making jewelry. On the days I made jewelry, I felt guilty for not writing. I could continue to do both, and do neither well; or I could concentrate fully on writing. Now that I’m able, it makes no sense to do anything else.

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