Ollie Ollie Oxen Free

As at least one of you has noticed, I've not been posting much lately. Where have I been? Hiding. Why have I been hiding? Laziness? Embarrassment? Depression? Shame? Low self-esteem? Yeah. Probably a cocktail, a nice fruity one with an umbrella, of all of those and then some. Mostly, I've been trying to avoid announcing the news that has so far led every person I've told to respond with a that'snotreallyasurprise type of comment. Anyway, here it goes:

I'm no longer pursuing a career in nursing.

For those who know me, you may lump this decision in with the numerous other times when I've dipped my toe into the shallow end of a career pool and immediately pulled it out and run around shouting, "It's too cold! It's too cold! I can't possibly swim in this career; it's far too cold!" Even though this decision may seem exactly the same as previous decisions, I put a lot more thought into this decision and I'm confident I've made the correct move.

First, I need to offer a little background that I've been promising for nearly a month now: The Writers Conference. While at the conference, I gave a couple of pieces I've been working on to a couple of the fellows to read. While the first manuscript consultation I had was very encouraging ("This section of description brought me back into the scene. It was very beautiful without being too flowery or poetic. No it was poetic. Simple and poetic." "These parts were quite funny." etc.), I still wasn't especially encouraged because the fellow's literary sensibility was completely different from mine. "It's a good exercise to imagine what animal your character's soul looks like." So even though she offered praise and some really good suggestions for my work, I wasn't that strongly swayed by any of it.

The second consultation, however, was insane goodness for me as a writer and a person in general. The first thing he said was, "I get the feeling you don't like writing dialogue very much."

"Yeah."

"Well, you should. You're very good at it. Actually, you're a much better writer than I feel you give yourself credit for. You're quite good."

This exchange did two things for me. There was the obvious confidence boost that comes from any sort of compliment. But more importantly, It showed me how obvious my lack of confidence is to everyone I meet. Before the consultation, I had spoken with this fellow for not even five minutes and he had immediately picked up on my lack of confidence. I'll discuss my lack of confidence in another post, but first I should finish what I started.

The manuscript consultation offered a lot of good advice for me given my particular writing style. The fellow told me that I'm good at dialogue and dramatization. I'm good at implying, showing, the tension that's beneath the surface through action instead of exposition. He said that when my manuscript got bad (and there are parts where it got really bad) was always when I relied too heavily on exposition and the writing got too internalized. I actually knew this about my writing but for some reason have been ignoring it lately. Anyway, he said that I should keep working on the project and that if I finish it and get it really polished up I should either enter it into a long-short story contest or, if it got to book length, I should shop around to try to find an agent for it.

Woohoo! There's my confidence. I AM a writer. I'm not just a guy who likes to write. I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I left the conference with the distinct feeling that within the next two years, if I work really hard, I could either have a deal to publish my first book, or be well down the road to such a deal.

Which leads me back to my decision about nursing.

I want to be a nurse. Caring for people is something that means a lot to me but I don't do nearly enough. I would love being a nurse. But what I really want to do is write. Those of you who've known me my whole life may be surprised to learn this, but I've always wanted to be a writer. Always. As a kid, I used to write stupid little stories that were basically rewrites of whatever movie, book, tv show, or play had recently struck me as entertaining. I can't think of a time in my life when I haven't turned to writing for some reason or other. Now I've got the confidence in myself and my ability to feel like I'm close to that goal, and I don't want to postpone it any longer. Nursing school would be at least two years of grueling work. Knowing myself as I do, I can't picture myself writing even once a week while in a program as time consuming and exhausting as nursing. And I don't want to wait two more years to start working toward my real goal of writing.

What if I did become a nurse though? What if I decided I could put off my writing for two more years? At that point, I would have to make a decision. Should I be a half-assed nurse or a half-assed writer? It would seem impossible to have two careers and not do one or both of them half-assedly. So I've decided to instead just find a job that wouldn't cause people to suffer if I did a half-assed job at until I can start earning my living as a writer.

There it is. I will not become a nurse. I am a writer.

I'm grateful for growing confidence (20).