It's Not Really About Laura

My cousin Laura is a writer. She’s been published all over the Internet, and in  newspapers, magazines, and books from small-town Iowa to the Middle East . She writes about parenting, feminism, anthropology, politics, war, and relationships. Sometimes in the same piece.

A few weeks ago I received in the mail a copy of Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and other Creative Acts, edited by Bee Lavender and Maia Rossini.

I turned to page 110 and found “Letters to Aisha” by my cousin Laura, the writer.

I knew about the book before it existed. I knew that Laura wanted to be part of it.  I knew about the Mamaphonic website, had heard of Bee Lavender, and had probably offered to proofread the piece Laura submitted.

Most importantly, I knew how much the piece beginning on page 110 meant to Laura. I had read Kitty’s poetry. I knew the history behind Laura’s ache to be a part of Aisha’s life. I knew what a shock Kitty’s death had been. And I knew the angst over what Kitty’s mother would think of this piece in this book.

Of course I read Laura’s piece first. I always do. Cover to cover doesn’t matter with this type of book. Besides, I know her piece will be the best – partly because I can say things to myself like, “Yeah, I’ve read Kitty’s poetry, too.” Or in some cases, “Ah, she changed that paragraph, works better this way, good.”

But mainly because it really is good. Better than good.

Ok, so the truth is, I don’t feel that all of the chosen pieces in Mamaphonic are really in Laura’s league. I like some of them, and I dislike some of them, but even the ones I like don’t seem to fit somehow. Maybe I’m biased; I likely am biased, but I don’t think I’m wrong. Don’t misunderstand – some of the pieces are fabulous and thought-provoking, and some of the pieces, well, I haven’t even read yet. But there is enough mediocrity in the book that I started to wonder how some of this stuff ended up next to Laura.

And I feel guilty for feeling that way. The same way I feel guilty for really enjoying the music of Laura’s ex-husband’s band during a period when he was being an ass. So because I feel guilty, I can’t be specific about which pieces I liked or didn’t like, or why. And it likely doesn’t matter anyway, because first of all, who am I? And second of all, everyone should buy the book regardless of what I say.

I’m a writer, too, by the way. Well, I make a living as a writer – I often add the adjective “technical” as an afterthought. I mean, I have to, right? I can’t just say “I’m a writer” can I? Wouldn’t that be misleading? Well, maybe I can say that, after all – if you Google me you will find a book with my name on the spine. If you know what titles to search on, you will find two (count ‘em, TWO!) books which contain my writing.

But my paychecks come from a building controls company with chilly offices near Chicago,  which pays me to throw together technical and marketing documents, seen by salespeople, vendors, field technicians, and the occasional customer. It’s boring. But my business card has the word “writer” on it.

Business card + Google = writer, right? *shrug*

There’s a pair of paragraphs in “To-do List” by Fiona Thomson, which I love:

I don’t know if I’m a writer….I’d like to be a writer. I am writing right now. Writing. Well, typing actually. I am a typer.

A typist I guess. An aspiring typist. One who types. Here I am, a typist, typing and composing the words that I type, so I guess, writing.

I could have written that. I have thoughts like that. Is what I do for a living really writing? Does LJ count as writing? What about the bbs? The little blurbs on my seldom-updated website? Or the long, rambling emails where I really feel like I’m saying something? Or the stuff I write that I really do feel is writing, but that nobody reads? Is that writing?

If an essay falls down in the woods and nobody reads it, did it really make any noise? Ok, well how stupid is that?

What is writing? But, see, while I do in fact have thoughts like that, I don’t write them down. Well, until now. But I’m certainly not sending them in as submissions, or putting them out there for the public. Unless you are the public, which I guess you are, so maybe I am.

But only after someone else did it first. Which makes me not a writer. It doesn’t make me Not A Writer, if you know what I mean, and some of you do, but it makes me not a writer. Which is just as fine as anything else.

People come to me for advice about writing – well, non-fiction writing. I don’t do much fiction, I never have. I have one fiction piece that I’ve been sitting on for three years or so, but I’m rarely moved to re-read it, let alone work on it. Every year at Nano time, I tell myself I will work on it, force myself to work on it, but eh.

I like non-fiction because I think it’s easier, and because nobody has to like it but me. And people come to me for advice – even, most recently, someone on my bbs who doesn’t even know me, but must think of me as...if not a writer, then the writing-type.

So I’m a writer, yeah, and I’m a mother, too. And my whole life is a balancing act. Balls in the air, some bounce, some break, you know the analogy, right? But I don’t feel like my writing is a “creative act”. I just go to work and write what they tell me to write, and sometimes it’s in a foreign language like VBA or engineer-speak, and they pay me. And when I feel like writing something I don’t get paid for writing, like right now on this airplane, I just write it down and I don’t angst about it.

And sometimes I don’t even bother to come up with an ending.