Grrr.... LJ just ate my long, detailed comment to you.
Let's try again.
First of all, thanks for your comment and questions, Eric. I always appreciate your insight.
I think when you have kids and are looking after them well, then that's your success right there and anything else you can manage -- especially when the kids are small -- is just gravy.
You are absolutely right. 100%.
I think my concerns are multifaceted. To start with, I'm an American female. My expectations of myself are probably skewed. My culture has told me from an early age I could do it all, that I should do it all. Feminism and all that. (Though this "version" of feminism is skewed itself.) Also, I'm one of those people who seems to measure success quantitatively -- I seem to like to have something to measure. I think I look back on this year and have very little that's concrete to measure my success by. All my "successes" are abstract non-quantifiable things. How does one measure how happy their kids are? If they're taken care of and are well-adjusted?
So I look at my writing and see very little that I can measure in terms of accomplishment. I have stories, but I don't consider them really done yet. I have pages written, but how do they fit together? They feel just like scribblings at this point, even though they are useful.
And I've hit that stage where I want to be good at this writing thing. I'm competent -- I've sold some stories, some to markets I'm quite proud of -- but I want to be better. I want to write things that some people will enjoy and be touched by. I'm not afraid of the work and effort ahead of me, but I wish I were there already. And, illogical as it is, I feel that I have wasted time and am not as far along as I might have been if life hadn't gotten in the way.
But at the same time I know that experience only makes one a better writer.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 11:03 pm (UTC)Let's try again.
First of all, thanks for your comment and questions, Eric. I always appreciate your insight.
I think when you have kids and are looking after them well, then that's your success right there and anything else you can manage -- especially when the kids are small -- is just gravy.
You are absolutely right. 100%.
I think my concerns are multifaceted. To start with, I'm an American female. My expectations of myself are probably skewed. My culture has told me from an early age I could do it all, that I should do it all. Feminism and all that. (Though this "version" of feminism is skewed itself.)
Also, I'm one of those people who seems to measure success quantitatively -- I seem to like to have something to measure. I think I look back on this year and have very little that's concrete to measure my success by. All my "successes" are abstract non-quantifiable things. How does one measure how happy their kids are? If they're taken care of and are well-adjusted?
So I look at my writing and see very little that I can measure in terms of accomplishment. I have stories, but I don't consider them really done yet. I have pages written, but how do they fit together? They feel just like scribblings at this point, even though they are useful.
And I've hit that stage where I want to be good at this writing thing. I'm competent -- I've sold some stories, some to markets I'm quite proud of -- but I want to be better. I want to write things that some people will enjoy and be touched by. I'm not afraid of the work and effort ahead of me, but I wish I were there already. And, illogical as it is, I feel that I have wasted time and am not as far along as I might have been if life hadn't gotten in the way.
But at the same time I know that experience only makes one a better writer.
So.