Summer camp counselor.
Fast food grill cook.
Disc jockey (college station).
DJ (local professional station).
Pizza Hut (one day in Amarillo. Long story).
Gas station attendant.
Busboy.
Gardener.
Waiter.
Bartender.
Night shift systems backup guy.
Procurement specialist.
Cost and scheduling analyst (fancy term for data entry).
Marketing coordinator.
Freelance magazine writer.
Author.
I'm procrastinating right now, as I must do before sitting down to solve a hard writing problem. Procrastination is fear of failure wrapped up in random thoughts and actions. Hemingway's comments about needing to "clean the refrigerator" before sitting down to write pretty much sums it up. And while I know exactly what's happening right now, I'm going to humor this impulse, just for fun.
Here goes: I don't have a CV or keep a resume but procrastination has fueled a sudden and intense need to write down my employment history since the age of fifteen. The Pizza Hut gig came while hitchhiking from Marquette, Michigan to California in 1981. My buddy Kurt and I were tired of the road and Amarillo seemed like a good place to spend the summer.
But after one day on the job at that Pizza Hut we decided there were many better options. Gas station attendant might sound a little mundane, but gas-station-attendant-by-the-beach-in-San-Clemente offered many more opportunities for meeting girls than Pizza-Hut-in-Amarillo.
I also didn't mention my gig teaching writing at Chapman College, or the year spent producing a movie. And I should add a multiple next to the waiter and bartender era, having performed those tasks at several Orange County dining establishments before finishing college. I had certain issues with late nights and punctuality back then. Also, coaching distance runners doesn't make the list, despite being twenty years in, because it's never once felt like a job.
Each occupation on that list could have been my life. Choice of career shapes friendships and habits and even brain function. I have plenty of friends who never left the restaurant business or gardening or even the quiet hell of the corporate world. They have done very well for themselves. Their thought process models that of their business.
What am I procrastinating over? Revising Taking London. My editor in New York, a quiet genius, suggested the original manuscript was not the act of brilliance I originally believed. He noted flaws in my attempts at suspense, thought a few passages were more than a little overwrought, actually requested new chapters to fill a couple holes, and, most painful of all, saw through my shortcuts.
He challenged me to write a better fucking book.
This sort of constructive criticism would have once sent me into a rage. I would have vented about being misunderstood, passive-aggressively resisting any change at all.
Now I love it.
This is a chance to reinvent the story, adding new pieces to the dramatic puzzle. This is also a challenge to go from good to great (hopefully — thus, the fear of failure and procrastination). Having an editor tell me the story needs work presents a wonderful creative challenge. This is what I mean about an occupation changing your brain.
My brain is a writer's brain, not that of a restaurant owner or DJ. There are no numbers in my thought process, only pretty sentences. My weekend has been a forced act of concentration as I problem-solve story issues in my head, attending a birthday party without being mentally present. Forcing myself to listen closely to a really smart sermon. Making eye contact when spoken to. After thirty years learning how to build a narrative, my subconscious has been working overtime — even in my dreams — finding ways to fix pacing, tense, content, and word choice as I endure social obligations and wait for the wonderful moment when I find my way back to the writing desk and attack the revision.
As a new writer it was all about my tender creative feelings. Now I am a servant to the story.
The process of acquiring all the knowledge and ability began with that camp counselor job (makes it sound like I was changing lives, when pretty much all we did was play softball and keep kids from drowning in the lake). A winnowing out. A time of selection. Saying no to other careers and saying yes to writing meant focus on a singular skill set that applies to no other occupation. It also means shedding skill sets that don't apply which is why I am horrible at math. Don't need it. And I can't throw a curveball.
When I quit that gardening job so long ago (insert "lawn mowing" and "weed pulling" for "gardening." I was not the guy masterminding the look and appearance of Sherman Gardens), the head guy handed me my final check and said with a straight face: "I hope you find what you're looking for."
Gardening was his forté. He couldn't see why anyone would want to do anything else. Yet those words still motivate me like that Jack Palance line about the "one thing."
I found it. Short of finding your soul mate, figuring out your singular skill set is the most wonderful discovery I can wish on anyone.
In other words, I am finally back at my writing desk and equipped to revise this manuscript. So let's get to it.