The Cost of Sacrifice

The other day, my daughter was talking enviably about a girl who'd made it big as a performer. She's been on TV, in music videos, commercials. We've had these conversations before - nearly every time she watches the Olympics or sees someone break big on America's Got Talent, or hears a story of a teen who publishes a book. It is always the sort of wistful, why-can't-that-happen-to-me kind of talk that leads to me talking about discipline and hard work and commitment.

This time, though, the conversation was ripe to talk about sacrifice. This kid who is now famous, I told her, gave up pretty much everything in her normal life years ago. She stopped going to school and having friends so she could spend all of her time in a studio and at lessons and traveling. She gave up free time on weekends to work. She gave up eating whatever she wanted. She gave up privacy. Just a few years ago, her parents divorced because one supported (pushed?) this fame agenda and the other just wanted her to grow up a bit more like other kids.

Would you be willing to give up all of that to be in her place, I asked. Would you give up your friends, your swim team, your band, your sleepovers with friends and Pinterest cooking parties and vacations? Would you give up Dad or me?

It's a discussion we've had in our house a lot lately, this cost of achieving a dream. How much are we willing to give up to get what we really want?

Going after what I want is something I've been wrestling with in particular over the past year. This week's question - how much are we willing to give up - has put a good perspective on it for me.

I want to write. I want to be able to do that much more than I've been doing it lately, which is not enough. It always seems that life is crowding in on me, and in the back of my head, I've thought, if I really wanted this, wouldn't I make it happen?

But the fact is, there are only so many hours in a day, and there is a lot that fills those hours.

What would I be willing to give up to get what I want?

I know a writer who realized she couldn't be a full-time writer if she had a mortgage hanging over her head. So she doesn't have a big house with modern luxuries. She lives a very minimalistic life so that she doesn't need another job. I know a writer who knew if she had kids, she would never have time to write, so she chose not to marry and have kids. I know people who have married and had kids, and still walked away from them to pursue their own dreams.

Am I willing to give up my family and house? Absolutely not.

When I think about what takes up my time, it is this. My kids. My husband. My home.

I am forever doing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning floors, cooking and packing meals, running errands so there is food in the fridge, clothes that fit, band instruments that work. I carpool kids. Endlessly carpooling kids.

I do a Bible study. I pray. That gets me through each day like breathing.

I work. I work now because my oldest is looking at colleges and we need to pay those looming bills so that he has the opportunity to live out his dreams.

What is there in my day that I could trade for a few hours of writing?

Not even sleep. There's not enough of that as it is.

It was good this week to look at what fills my hours and realize that there is hardly anything there I can sacrifice. Would want to sacrifice.

For now, what steals the hours from writing are those things even more valuable to me than writing. My kids. My husband. My home.

That realization gave me a few moments of peace. And then, I wrote a few lines in my novel, and went to bed.

What I Learned from Disney About Writing

So last week I truly took off. No computer. No internet. No emails, texts, facebooks, or tweets. For seven days I went cold turkey.

Of course, it didn't hurt that I spent the week here:

Yeah. My family and I took off for warmer climates to thaw out from the winter and get to know each other again. And ride a few rides. And eat... a lot.

It was an amazing time to just spend with the kids without books and computers and deadlines and homework - theirs and mine. We talked a ton, laughed even more, and though I thought being off-line would possibly kill me, I loved it.

But there's no getting away from writing when you're a writer, even if it's only in your head. Looking around at Disney World is a education in vision and persistence, and what Walt Disney did with his small kingdom could be a lesson for us writers too.

So here's what I learned:

• Cleanliness is important, whether it's total lack of trash in the streets or spelling errors in a manuscript. People will judge you on it.
• Pick at least one thing (a setting, a character, a subplot - or a castle or tree in the middle of the park) and make it extraordinary.
• Market yourself wherever you have the opportunity. There was a joke on the jungle cruise, as we headed into a dark tunnel: "You never know where this will lead. Of course, it's Disney so it'll probably end in a gift store." 
• Details make a difference, even in the places you think few people will notice.
• Don't be afraid to keep revising something if it has a kink in it.
• Be passionate about what you are doing.

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but my brain is sunburned. :) I missed you all last week. I'll try to catch up in the next days.

If I Lived Another Life..

Do you ever wonder what you'd be doing if you weren't you? Or rather - if you weren't where you are in life, having made the choices you've made... maybe what you'd be doing if you could have chosen the gifts and personality you'd wanted, or if you had another life to live...

I love my life. Given anything in the world, this is what I'd want. I love my husband and kids with a fierce passion. I love being a mom, and a media production creator, and a photographer, and writer. I love my house in the woods and minivan I swore I'd never own (but mostly for those bun warmers!).

But I do find myself wondering every now and then... what if?

There is a photographer I follow on Twitter. I don't know him. He followed me first and, intrigued by his photo ID (which showed him on a mountain top taking a photo), I added him too. From what I can tell, all he does is travel around taking pictures. He sits in San Francisco cafes and drinks mocha frappucinos, listens to really cool music and takes awesome photos of whatever strikes his fancy. He travels to exotic locations like Rome and Paris and takes photos of kids swinging over lakes in summer and birds taking off from the pond in front of the Capital building. He also does weddings, although even those are not your run-of-the-mill weddings.

I fantasize sometimes about doing that. Certainly not leaving the life I love, but having another life to live that way - to travel at whim, take amazing photos of wherever I land, centering my whole existence around getting the shots I want and making beautiful images rather than trying to make something beautiful out of wherever I am at the time.

I fantasize about being the kind of person who is comfortable traveling alone and making friends everywhere I go. Having nothing to tie me to anything. And to be okay with that.

Truth is - even if everything I had right now disappeared, I'd never be that person. I like the ties that bind me to people, and to places. I like having some roots and routines. And I like traveling with someone that I can share those experiences with.

Still, it's fascinating.

It makes me think that this is what writing is for: to live vicariously through characters I create - to get to be them for a while. Maybe I'll write a book with my fictitious roving photographer. How fun would it be to live in that world every day for a few hours!?

Do you ever think about what you'd love to do or be if you had another life to live?