walk out the door
My grandmother left home at thirteen.
She grew up on a farm in Kansas right before the Dust Bowl. Rode a horse and carried a shotgun to school.
After her mother broke her arm, she walked out the farmhouse door and never went back. She got a job with a large family in town taking care of their eight little kids. From that moment on she supported herself.
In the fifties she owned her own beauty salon. Eventually she bought a building in Denver. A single mom, she supported two daughters. When she put her mind to something, she figured out how to make it happen.
I spent summers with her learning how to sew, swim, can peaches, play marbles, and cook. Her house had pink carpet and chandeliers in the bathroom. She and my grandfather twirled through their two-car garage dancing the polka. Life was always an adventure.
You could take any problem to my grandmother and she’d help you figure out how to solve it.
“Let’s make a plan,” she’d say, taking out a handful of multi-colored pens and the yellow legal pad she kept in her desk drawer.
You didn’t go to her for an answer, you went to her for a plan. Everything could be worked out. She might not know the answer, but she knew she could find a way to work the problem and eventually get to a solution.
Today we live at a time of instant gratification and access. We want everything yesterday. You got a problem? Someone out there is ready to solve it for you. Right this minute, you probably have at least 10 emails in your inbox with solutions to problems you didn’t even know you had. Everyone wants to fix you.
We also live in a time when it’s okay to ask for help. My grandmother, like so many at that time, wasn’t ever very good at that. There was a stubborn mental toughness to her that made it difficult to swallow her pride, show vulnerability, and admit she needed help getting something done.
(Side note. My grandmother never apologized for anything. "If I said it," she'd say. "I must have meant it.")
I’m glad we live during a time that recognizes it’s okay to need help, because sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and say, “I have no clue WTF I’m doing.”
But if you follow the self-made pull yourself up by your bootstraps myth then asking for help makes your skin crawl. It can make you feel vulnerable and stupid. Like, shouldn’t I have figured this out on my own?
There’s asking for help and then there’s asking for a quick fix.
Every day there’s a thousand new promises on how to write a million dollar bestseller overnight.
(Case in point, there are 15 million search returns on Google for that very phrase.)
I’m sorry, but all those offers are bullshit.
There are no silver bullets to kill the monsters.
No fairies with magic wands to magicalize you.
Just a lot of planning and hard work.
Sometimes that means being willing to walk out the door on where you are to get where you want to go.
***
P.S. If you need help with a plan for your novel, send me an email. Even if you just need to send an email to someone that says, "I don't know WTF I'm doing!" I'll reply.
P.P.S And if emailing me for help makes your skin crawl, then head over to my Instagram where I post irregular and sometimes unconventional inspiration. Including unicorns frolicking in the garden.
Hello!
My name is Jocelyn.
Story warrior, book lover, day dreamer, gardener, and creative. I help serious writers roll up their sleeves, get their novel ready for publishing, and reach readers. When I’m not elbow-deep in the story trenches, I’m outside world-building in my garden and battling weeds with my three criminal mastermind cats.
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