The dream

It was about two weeks ago that I opened up a book I had borrowed from one of my former professors. It was a book with a red cover she had pulled from the huge wall of books in her office. Her last name was written in gold lettering on the spine, since she had written it herself. The book sat on my bookshelf for six months, mostly forgotten, but upon picking it up again I remembered right away why I asked to borrow it. It was pure delight to see my prof's mind at work, ruminating on Eudora Welty's photography, the cartoons of Rose O'Neill, the humor of Emily Dickinson's poetry, and the lives of women photographers of the Southwest like Gertrude Kasebier and Laura Gilpin. So many ideas, so many lives I previously knew not much about. After reading a few chapters I was thoroughly enlightened and sorry for having put the book aside for so long.

And then I thought something else: Maybe I could write something like this, someday.

This happens to me fairly often after I finish reading books. It's the one dream I have for my life that doesn't go away. I want to tell a story worth telling and instead of reducing it to instant oatmeal, really do it justice. I want to say things that haven't been said before. I want to educate people, inspire them, risk offending them, and do it all in an entertaining way. Every time I think about that, I feel like an alarm goes off inside my head. That's IT. That's what I want to do.

And then the alarm goes quiet and I think about doing it for real, and it seems pretty impossible. I'm a blogger who sometimes writes some halfway decent stuff amid the posts about Filet-o-Fish commercials. I know how to construct a news article. I can write an essay. But a real Writer, the kind who writes books people buy, well, I don't know.

But once in a while it seems attainable, even for an amateur like me -- sit down and start writing, right? Last weekend I read an article in O magazine by Sandra Cisneros about how she started as a writer (article not available online, unfortunately). She writes about how at 26 she moved out of her parents' house against her father's wishes to live by herself in a tiny rundown apartment that she called her "office." She filled the office with things that inspired her to write. "Antique typewriters, alphabet blocks, asparagus ferns, bookshelves, ceramic figurines from Occupied Japan, wicker baskets, birdcages, handpainted photos."

The photo on the first page of the article is that of Cisneros as a curly-haired young woman, sitting in a chair with a typewriter to her right, resting her head on her left knuckles, her lips set in a flat line as she gazes at the camera. She looks serious and determined, certainly, but not as self-assured as she looks in the other photos with the article, where she is about 20 years older. In this photo, her eyes seem like they're searching for something; in the other photos it seems like she has already found it.

The writer's life sounds kind of romantic when Cisneros talks about her apartment and writer's workshops and late night tacos and day jobs. She talks about "creating a text that is as succinct and flexible as poetry" and writing sentences "pliant as branches."

Overall, it is quiet, privacy, and solitude that Cisneros sees as the lifeblood of a writer. These are so precious to her that she is willing to give up spending time with those she loves. Says Cisneros, "On the weekends, if I can sidestep guilt and avoid my father's demands to come home for Sunday dinner, I'm free to stay home and write. I feel like a bad daughter ignoring my father, but I feel worse when I don't write. Either way, I never feel completely happy."

This part I'm torn about. I'm not sure if Cisneros is just plain mean to ignore her family, or if she's right to claim time for herself even if it means shutting other people out. Occupational hazard?

I remember writing my master's thesis, sequestering myself at home for the better part of two months. I stopped going out on weekends so I could spend endless hours punching out these chapters that somehow never seemed good enough. Those weren't very happy months; I gained about 20 pounds, was grumpy all the time, and basically forgot how to hold a face-to-face conversation. On the other hand, at the end of those two months I held 100 pages printed out and bound together in my hands. I had people that I respect tell me what I did was important. I'm usually so critical of myself, but when I finished the thesis I was proud of what I had done.

Now I wonder what's next for me as far as the writing I really want to do. Forget sacrifice these days. When I'm not at work, I'm mostly spending time with family and friends. Or watching TV. Or checking e-mail. Hence my recent run of cut-and-paste blog posts.

I suppose if I really want to set the world on fire, that's not going to cut it. I'm close to the end of the magical age of 26, the age Cisneros said 'no' to her father and moved into the "office" so she could write. Funny how thoroughly I can appreciate the bravery of that decision, given my age and sex and that I come from a Hispanic family, too. It's something so simple, in a way, and yet so difficult. It's not so easy laying claim to a space, laying claim to your time, and tuning out the naysayers.

I wonder if I can be that brave. How can I force myself to say no to people? Do I even have any ideas worth writing about? And what about money? It all seems so bewildering, and yet what if I just started writing because it's what I really want to do? I think good things would follow.