Mr. and Mrs. Miniver reading (for Richard Wheeler). Well, I finished a second draft of the second novel and am sending it off to a reader who promises to be tough and easily bored. If she gives it a thumbs down, that will be it for trying the format of a novel again. I can accept the fact that I am a short story writerl.
She may say it needs a lot of work and that will give me pause over what to do.
I have a million short stories in my head and can easily entertain myself with writing them. I know I'll never earn money from writing shorts, never be read beyond the tiniest of tiny circles, but damn I never thought I'd have this much in life creatively. I wasn't raised to be successful in the larger world.
I don't mean this to be a knock on my parents. They were comfortable with living quietly and thought I'd be too. Small aspirations can keep you safe from disappointments. Opening the door to something in a wider world wasn't for them. Maybe the Internet has helped open such doors.
Were you raised to try for the bigger things? Did you parents push you out of their nest or warn you that you might fall (fail) if your tried to fly?
She may say it needs a lot of work and that will give me pause over what to do.
I have a million short stories in my head and can easily entertain myself with writing them. I know I'll never earn money from writing shorts, never be read beyond the tiniest of tiny circles, but damn I never thought I'd have this much in life creatively. I wasn't raised to be successful in the larger world.
I don't mean this to be a knock on my parents. They were comfortable with living quietly and thought I'd be too. Small aspirations can keep you safe from disappointments. Opening the door to something in a wider world wasn't for them. Maybe the Internet has helped open such doors.
Were you raised to try for the bigger things? Did you parents push you out of their nest or warn you that you might fall (fail) if your tried to fly?
33 comments:
My Mom wanted me to be a priest. When it became obvious that I wasn't religious, she switched to wanting me to be a doctor, then a lawyer, then a College President. But she finally settled for me being a College Professor. My Dad just told me: "Do something you like."
I love your short stories, Patricia. Just read A Saving Grace again, and it's brilliant.
My parents say they're proud of my fiction writing, but I'm pretty sure they wished I'd become an architect, doctor or accountant. The longer I'm trying to get things published, the more I'm beginning to think they're right :-)
Those goals would have been beyond their expectation--even though my brother became an engineer, then got a law degree and finally became a patent judge. Their idea was to be able to put dinner on the table-financially not domestically. My parents could never get over that Phil didn't teach in the summer after a while. Thought he was pulling a fast one instead of writing books.
Thanks, Fleur. So nice of you. I became aware of your work on the Thrilling Detective Site also-Circling the Drain and another one on MystericalE
My mom kinda combined those things. She wanted me to get an education, which sort of pushed me out of the nest, but at the same time she didn't want me to change as I got that education and she began to worry about my immortal soul. A lot.
First of all, congrats on completing the second novel. It's something I haven't done yet.
As for my parents, yeah, they pretty much told me I could do anything I wanted. They supported me in my education. They never told me to be less than what I am. I've discovered a lot about myself since I left my growing-up house but, the older I get, the more I realize how much they taught me just by being themselves.
Let's see-- My dad died when I was 10, and my mother has spent the last 25 plus years in a state of shock and fear. She didn't have much to say about trying or not, mostly she did everything in her power to keep my siblings and me close and under control. School kept saying you can be anything and do what ever you want, but family and lack of support really kept my dreams limited.
My parents (more my mom than my dad) never liked me trying for the spotlight. I think it upset their English sensibilities of living quietly with no fuss.
Ah well.
I came here from Margot's blog; and I must say I'll be back!
My mother has always lived quietly. She never attends movies even(the only one I ever knew her to see in a theater was when she took my two sisters and myself to our first). It was always work hard and live quiet. Though she likes to read, it was always religious stuff and she never liked me buying books or music.
I once told her if I couldn't buy books or music, even now and again, I likely would have blown my brains out long ago.
Do you see the difference here between people born after 1970 and those born before. We children of the greatest generation were taught to be cautious. But hopefully we turned around and spurred our own kids on.
Yes, buying books and music was alien. Who not just use a library-which I still do at least half the time.
Hi Elspeth-My mother always referred to it as "not wanting me to get a big head." But truly, she thought she was protecting me from disappointment--and maybe she was.
I dabbled in blacksheepdom. I headed out to Hollywood, startling my staid, respectable parents. After a wastrel interlude on the Sunset Strip, I wanted to be a pundit, a Scotty Reston, a Joe Alsop, a Walter Lippmann, but I lacked a certain gravitas. I would gladly have married Greer Garson, but she married an oilman and lived happily ever after in New Mexico. Maybe your fate, Patricia, is to be the best short story writer ever, even if you really pined to be a chambermaid.
My parents were firmly of the "kick the bird out of the nest when you know it's ready to fly" school. They have always been supportive, but the first job of every adult is to get a job, put food on the table, roof over the head, etc. We were very much a working-class family, no money for college. I worked to put myself through college (I'm still the only college graduate amongst a very large extended family).
When Hurricane Katrina came through, my husband had to go to Baton Rouge for work and I had to return to my parents' home with three kids in tow. When I took the kids to be enrolled in school, I truly did not know what my financial situation would be (whether house or job was still there, etc.), so I somewhat shamefacedly signed them up for free lunches. My father--for whom "welfare" is a four-letter word--said, "You've been working and paying taxes since you were 18 years old, if your children need free lunches for a few weeks, they deserve it." That was a great moment.
I have faith in you, Patti. How do I preorder your WIP?
Richard-now that would be an excellent story. Or have you already written it. You wouldn't need any gravitas now-it would only hold you back.
Deb-my family was 2/3 blue collar and 1/3 well-educated. So I always got mixed and confusing messages.
Jerry-I may do that. Mail it to anyone who wants it. Or post it on here in segments.
I'm not the Richard you meant the pic for, but I'm very appreciative of it!
Congrats on finishing that first draft, or third, or tenth... I hope you keep at it. As for the family thing, next comment I make.
A fine questions!
My parents had to struggle quite hard to stave off poverty when they were young so their ambitions for us were that they wanted us to be able to provide for our families and have jobs we liked.
So my university education and teaching job must certainly be called success by their standard. And should I ever succeed in publishing ANYTHING my mother would be very proud indeed. Without any kind of education she has not been able to help me with my homework, but my parents have always supported me in doing whatever I found important. And actually my mother is one of my most supportive ´fans´. She reads very little, but she devours all my stuff, be it flash fiction, short story or novel.
Good luck with your manuscript!
I grew up with a single Dad after my Mom left at age 4. He had a hands off approach. He was never outwardly encouraging of a life in the arts but he also never discouraged it. He gently suggested I find a backup career just in case but when I went to film school he didn't blink and never tried to steer me away from my goals. I know he was sweating bullets when I moved to LA but he was so proud the first time my name was on TV zipping by in the credits.
I found out he was also the first person to buy my novel off of Amazon. But, such is my Dad, his first response was to tell me what I got wrong with the historical details. Only later did he say he liked the book. The word proud has never actually come out of his mouth. I know it's in there though.
I hope we all get a chance to read your book, Patti.
Patti,
I admire you for the short story writing you do. I've thought about it carefully. Most of us write to be read, but that doesn't have to be by millions or for millions of dollars.
You have a gift for writing and you have readers who respond to your work. I think that's a blessing.
That doesn't mean I don't wish the best for the book. I do.
Okay, the family thing. I grew up in the Fifties, started high school in 1959. Both parents college grads (my mother was the first woman to graduate from Stanford with a major in math). Father was white collar businessman, mother was a high school teacher. Older brother never got anything but "A"s. I had to work to get a "B" and always felt stupid. They supported me, but I had no idea what I wanted to do, except it was expected I'd go college, then do...something.
When I decided I wanted to be an architect, I got lots of support, but the structural engineering courses were beyond me. After that my own expectations were low, but I liked to read, so I became an English major. None of which prepared me for my 34 year career as a social worker and programs manager.
You never know where you'll end up, and in my mind expectations are just as deadly dangerous as "potential". Do what you like and enjoy doing, if you're at all good at it -- if you're not good at it you probably won't enjoy it anyway.
I'm not so sure the internet helps, probably it fractures any focus pre-web culture may have had. Now anyone can be an expert, and be who they say they are,without really having earned their position or respect.
My mother would have been thrilled if I'd become a writer, but I don't guess I have the discipline for it.
I just went back and read the previous comments. If it doesn't get picked up (as most of what I've written hasn't been), I would enjoy seeing the novel posted here in segments.
In fact, I might wish others would do the same.
Isn't it fascinating to read the paths we have tred. All so different. Megan always said she wanted to be a writer and my son, Josh always said he wanted to be a lawyer. I still don't know what I'd be if I had it to do over. Some of us drift or settle more than others.
Thanks for all the support here. You may well see the novel in installations before it's over.
Right now I'd settle for your working title.
Darkness Takes a Daughter, That's tenatative, of course.
My parents always told me I could do whatever I applied myself to, but I was also raised in near Pittsburgh in the 70s and watched mills close almost weekly. I moved away because there were no jobs when I came out of college. The effect was, I believed I could do anything, but was always painfully aware of how limited opportunities might be.
So I'm often confident, but not much of a risk-taker, as opportunities are to be treasured and treated with great care.
My dad thought I was crazy for wanting to be a writer and even crazier for not having some sort of fall-back plan. But no matter what he thought, he did everything humanly possible to see to it that I had the chance to succeed or fail in what I wanted to do, and for that I'll always think he was the greatest guy I've ever known.
My mom just thought I was crazy. What little of my writing she read, she hated and wanted nothing to do with it. She even warned me not to ever dedicate a book to her. Her brain just wasn't wired to be interested in, or even to understand, the things I was interested in.
I should add that my brain wasn't wired to understand the way my mother thought, either, so it definitely goes both ways.
I think I have said this on here before, but before my mother passed, she said she wished Megan or me saw the world differently and wrote more uplifting stories. She always praised what we wrote but saw our subject matter as depressing. Now she read a lot of crime fiction, but more along the lines of Ellery Queen, Stuart Woods or Janet Evanovich-where it wasn't as grisly or as dismal.
Risk-taking a good way of phrasing it, Dana.
I had a lot of encouragement from my parents but it wasn't focused. That's not really a knock but a learning tool. I would have my own children stick with something they started.
Yes, congratulations on finishing the draft.
My parents were all about the small aspirations and being safe from disappointments. My mother never liked it if her kids stood out from the crowd.
In Canada we call it the "Elk Theory," the idea that the safest place is in the middle of the herd, too far in front or behind and you get picked off.
I understand the Dutch call it the "Tall Tulip" theory and try to cut down any one that's too tall.
We never thought Americans suffered from it, though. Alice Munro had to change the title of her short story collection (get it, Patti, get it, short story collection?), Who Do You Think You Are? to The Beggar Maid in the US because Americans wouldn't understand the original title.
"Big head" --all the same idea coming from the Scottish-Irish mentality I think. Or Morthern European. And I think Who Do You Think You Are was a much better title. Maybe I'll use it.
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