Wit, Words, and Joie de Vivre

When I was a kid, I started getting crazy excited round about October 1st. Because Halloween was coming. And oh my God Halloween costumes and candy and trick-or-treating... and then Thanksgiving!!... which was not as exciting as the other two, but still fun and it means the holidays are really cranking, and then Christmas. The whole month of December was full of fun little things like baking and advent calendars and decorating the Christmas tree, but what I was really crazy for was, of course, Christmas day.

We weren't much for snooping for presents, but one year my mom put some of the presents under the tree in the middle of December instead of Christmas Eve. The sight of those tantalizing packages turned me crazy, like a cat whose owner has opened a can of salmon for their own lunch.

Waiting for Christmas was like some form of torture, almost physically painful.

But then I turned 13 or 14 and it was Christmas Eve and I realized... with a slight pang of horror... that my stomach was not in knots of glee. That I could actually sleep. I still enjoyed the holidays... but I just wasn't excited like I used to be. The anticipation was part of the fun, even though it turned me into a crazy person.

The reason I bring up this story is, my book comes out December 22 and, I'm sort of remembering how this time of year used to feel, but for a different reason, and, SELF, REMEMBER, THE ANTICIPATION *IS* PART OF THE FUN.

So, this week m_stiefvater had a great post about self-confidence that everyone has been talking about. One thing she mentions is that she just decided to develop self-confidence around 19 or 20 or something.

I kind of did the same thing. Not that I threw a magic confidence switch, but here is a portrait of me at 18: long hair, t-shirts and jeans, shy, quiet, unsure of what I wanted from life. I disappeared into the world of my characters because THEY had awesome lives. I mean, except for being blinded, maimed, and losing family members in horrible ways all the time. Plus some torture and accidental time-traveling and...okay, nevermind. Anyway, they were all well-dressed and fascinating with cool hangouts, cool friends, cool hobbies...

It was shortly after this that I discovered this man:



Hell, even if you don't like David Bowie's looks or his music, you have to admit the dude's had an interesting life. Bowie led me to poke into the lives of more rock stars and then other artists, writers, etc. through history who were characters themselves. Like Tasha Tudor, who loved the 1830s and largely recreated an 1830s life for herself.

It was then I realized that some people ARE characters. And they aren't necessarily born into it. They create it. I wondered why I let my characters have all the fun. I always loved playing dress-up with vintage clothes as a child, but I never wore vintage clothes in public because people around here just don't DO that.

I made a vow to myself, to the soundtrack of "Queen Bitch" and "Virginia Plain", that I would not wait for a reason to dress up. I would not wait for other people to do it. I think this was the moment I came into my own as an adult. I owned who I was. It wasn't just about clothes, even if it started there, it was about realizing I don't have to follow the status quo unless I want to. It means if I want to focus on my writing, skip college and be poor, I don't care if you roll your eyes at me. I'm doing what I want to be doing, not what you want me to be doing.

The only hard part of sticking to my own path was the loneliness. But at that retreat in Savannah, I realized, I am a rock star. I was there in the moment I dreamed of--with my fellow rock stars, brilliant funny free-thinking people with artistic passion. And I'm not sure I would have ever gotten there if I hadn't become a rock star long ago, before hardly anyone believed I was one.

I'm late to this, but Sarah Cross made a great and hilarious post last week about her first novel and why you shouldn't freak out if you don't get published as a teenager.

I was one of those kids who really wanted to be published as a teenager. I was naturally full of seething jealousy for every teenager who was published. In retrospect, I'm glad I wasn't published as a teenager just so I didn't have to deal with a silent army of seething me-types hating me.

Naturally, once I left my teen years, my goal was to be published by age thirty. And I made it! I'll be 28 when my debut releases. But there is still an occasional nagging pang when I see people getting published at, say, 24. I think it's because there's this sense that maybe I wasn't good enough to get published at 24 and they were.

If you've ever suffered this momentary pang, take a deep breath with me. It doesn't matter, does it? When I think of my favorite authors of all time, I couldn't even tell you how old they were when their first book came out, or when the book of theirs I love best came out. When genius goes onto the page, it doesn't matter. Just worry about that. (Well, except don't worry TOO much. That's another pile of different angst, isn't it?)

Moreover, I think when we focus too much on superficials like age or wealth, it's the first step to closing ourselves off to what others have to teach us.

And do look at Sarah's post if you missed it! It made me do that laugh I get that sounds like some kind of squawking bird or hinge in need of oiling.