that's one steep hill there...

In my head, I've got this list of all the things they never tell you when you're a kid and you want so badly to grow up. The one that's been plaguing me lately is that no one ever really told me when I was eleven and I wanted to be a writer that getting there is really hard. Like, not just a rough and narrow path, but one like this picture-- miles upward, almost vertical.

But you know what? I'm doing it.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not much good at anything else because of the obsessive writing* that means no matter what other job I'm doing, it has to share brainspace with the stories I want to tell, and therefore probably won't get done as efficiently or quickly as anyone wants. The whole world is just going to have to deal with this fact. One day, I'll be able to afford an assistant who gets me enough to keep me on track and remind me that things need to get done** and then maybe I'll be more efficient and less overwhelmed, but for now, yeah. Stories first, then food, then the rest of adult responsibilities.

And I'm stubborn. Really stubborn. I hate when people tell me to be patient, to calm down, or to cheer up. I hate compromise in things as important as what I'm going to do for the rest of my life*** and I really, really hate setbacks and the feeling that I'm not getting anywhere. So I bully myself through stuff I don't want to do, like calling creditors to get payments plans set up that I can deal with and arguing with people on the phone to get financial aid ironed out-- because I'm not passing up a chance to work with people doing what I want to do because of something as stupid as the fact that I don't have money. The point of this is so that I will have money later****, and a better life, and maybe won't wind up one of those bony, angry, used-up women by the time I'm fifty. There's enough other people who have done that; it's not for me.

The upshot: I now have my financial aid payments set up. But it means I have absolutely no wiggle room in my budget, and I feel a bit like I'm suffocating, but I can deal. I'll eat less, sleep less. Breathe less. And I'll get through this again.

* I can't concentrate without a pen and paper around, and I've considered keeping a grease pencil in the shower so I can write on the tiles while I'm washing my hair, which is when alot of my best ideas happen.

** And do alot of the more horrible things like paying bills and calling creditors and balancing the checkbook and making schedules and making sure I get up in the morning...

*** Which will be a very long time because I intend to live to at least 122, and the way science is going, with the growing of replacement organs and anti-ageing DNA therapy and digital immortality, I think 122 is a conservative number.

**** At which point I'll set up a scholarship for writers and a fellowship and so on to fund people who want to do this and are in the same place as me