Authorial Talent Crushes

This week’s Road Trip Wednesday over at YA Highway asks: What author’s career would you love to emulate?

There’s no one author I’d model my career on; I think each writer’s life is different and varied enough that it’s pretty impossible to find others who are in exactly the same boat as you. That being said, my career aspiration since about halfway through my MFA has been to find a way to write full-time–to be a career writer. Barring that, it’s been to find a job that doesn’t intrude on my life so much that I can’t write. It’s not that writing is all there is. It’s that it’s the way I know I can make the greatest positive impact on others and still feel happy and fulfilled.

There are a few writers who exemplify the sort of life (and attitudes) that I’m aiming for. The big one is Ursula K. Leguin. Her writing not-with-standing–and she’s a great, great writer; a beautiful stylist who tackles big ideas in her books; stunningly smart; unafraid to demand respect “despite” the fact that she writes genre works–she says some stuff on the FAQ of her website that I’ve found incredibly inspiring:

Who helped/hindered you in your early career?

My parents never encouraged me in the sense of making a fuss about what I wrote or praising my determination to write. They encouraged me greatly in the sense that they believed that if you have a talent, you ought to work hard at it.

When I was getting near college age, my father talked with me about getting a ‘salable skill’ — learning a trade that I could live on. Because most writers don’t earn enough from writing to buy catfood, this was wise advice. I loved languages, so I went into French and Italian literature in college, and went on for higher degrees that would qualify me to teach.

Then when I got married, my husband never questioned my right to write. This is fairly rare, especially in husbands. My advice to young writers is, if you can’t marry money, at least don’t marry envy.

When I was young, the few older writers I knew were encouraging; and the writers who are my friends now are generous people with a strong sense of community. I keep away from writers who think art is a competition for fame, money, prizes, etc. What matters is the work.

How do you feel about your life now? What would you change or wish had been different?

I love living almost as well as I love writing.

It was tough trying to keep writing while bringing up three kids, but my husband was totally in it with me, and so it worked out fine. Le Guins’ Rule: One person cannot do two fulltime jobs, but two persons can do three fulltime jobs — if they honestly share the work.

The idea that you need an ivory tower to write in, that if you have babies you can’t have books, that artists are somehow exempt from the dirty work of life — rubbish.

I’ve probably quoted the above a gazillion times, here and elsewhere. And I never get tired of it.

Another author whose career I’ve recently found inspiring is Maggie Stiefvater. She’s young–twenty-eight, I believe?–but has been making a life for herself via artistic pursuits for years now. I’m reading her book Shiver right now and it’s so good that it hurts. She’s also a bit of a dabbler–portrait painter, (kind of goofy) musician, amateur animator–and she wrote this about the subject, which I found incredibly spot-on. Her career’s built slowly; she wasn’t one of those debut authors who got a six-figure contract right-out-the-gate. But now she has one. Which I think says something about dedication and hard work and sheer awesomeness paying off. We tend to hold up the Stephenie Meyers of the world as an example: must be successful immediately, and young, must be fresh and new and perfect and stunning on our first try. I think that there is room for other narratives of success, other models. I think Maggie’s success is proof of that.