My Aha! Moment

While it wasn't really a crossroads because I always knew I loved words and had to do something, anything, to get a few in print one day, there was a brief moment in high school when I actually considered studying education, rather than my beloved journalism, in college.

And can I just tell you that my Mom loved, loved, loved this brief diversion?

See, Moms are loving but also very practical people. And when you grow up in a family where you're the first one to actually go off to college, well, there's some pretty great expectations. As in, you better land a good job once all the studying is through. None of this starving artist stuff is going to do...

While I know she believed in me and my potential, landing a job in writing just felt infinitely more difficult than oh, say, teaching. But for some reason, and I like to think it was a God-thing, I simply couldn't resign myself to the second best career opportunity. While grading papers and getting students excited about literature and writing definitely had its appeal (and me, ever the optimistic, actually believed I could inspire them, even if I wasn't always the epitome of grace, elegance and paying attention in class either), I knew that I had to learn more about the craft of writing to have any shot at actually pursuing it for a living.

So I majored in journalism...not education.

And now more than 10 years into my writing career, I'm sure glad that I did. These days, in particular, it's not always easy being a working writer. The statistics are stacked against us, the gigs not nearly as plentiful as they have been in year's past. And frankly, sometimes it's not that much fun waiting for checks and hoping your books will actually sell. But all things considered, there's still something that makes me all giddy about telling a story, or in many cases, other people's stories, and I'd encourage anyone who feels the same way to pursue his/her writing dreams, too.

After all, there will always be an opportunity to teach if writing doesn't work out. Or in my case, you can do a little of both sometimes. In fact, that's what I'm doing in about an hour. I'm off to Bethel University, where I'm going to be talking about blogging and social networking within the framework of building your writing career. Basically, I'll get to live out my Mom's former dream for me for a little less than two hours, and I won't even have to dress like this lady (see pic on the left). Thank goodness.