college in Pennsylvania. Two days before my second school year was set to begin, I left my husband, left the job, and very quickly left the state. I moved back to Tennessee and in with my mother. Having burned my last employers so badly, there was pretty much no chance of my finding another teaching job, so I wound up getting a job as a waitress. I was twenty-five years old. It wasnât the best time in my life, but at least I wasnât mailing in a percentage of my tip money to pay down student loans for my M.F.A.
Up until that point there had never been any reason to doubt that my life was going to work out exactly according to script. I had thought I was a writer when I was a student, but would I still be a writer now that I was also a waitress? It was a test of love: How long would I stick around once things were no longer going my way? (Illustrative anecdote: Many years later, I was in London interviewing Ralph Fiennes for GQ . While we were at lunch the waiter approached to tell Fiennes how much he admired his work. âIâm an actor, too,â the waiter said as he held out a piece of paper for an autograph. Later I asked Fiennes how long he would have been willing to be a waiter who struggled to be an actor. Things had gone well for him pretty much right off the bat, but letâs say for the sake of argument that they hadnât and he had to pick up dirty plates and sweep up the crushed saltines of children. How much resilience had there been in his dream, and how far would he have slogged on without any signs of success? The actor shook his head. âI couldnât have done it,â he said.)
There were things I learned about writing while working as a waitress that I hadnât come to during my student years, and the first was my own level of commitment. As the months went by, I knew that I wrote because it was my joy, and if I kept on being a waitress forever, writing would still be my joy. But that didnât mean I didnât have plans to use writing as a means of escape. I had been unwaveringly loyal to my talent, and now that the chips were down I expected it to be loyal to me. With so much time for thinking and so little time for writing, I learned how to work in my head. Between pilfering croutons off salad plates and microwaving fudge sauce for the sundaes, I decided I was going to make up a novel, and that the novel was going to get me out of the restaurant. The novel was going to be my getaway car.
From the moment I walked into Allan Gurganusâs class, I had been utterly devoted to the short story. When people asked me when I planned to write a novel, I would say, If I were a violinist, would you ask me when I was going to play the viola just because itâs bigger? (Shake your head in pity here for the self-righteous undergraduate.) But I had gotten myself into a novel-sized hole, and I knew it was going to take a lot more than a story to save me. The problem was that I had received a massive and expensive education in how to write short stories, and not so much as a correspondence course in how to write a novel. (I realize now this is largely a matter of time, logistics, and to some degree patience. A teacher may be willing to read fifteen short stories a week, but no one can read rambling, lengthy, decontextualized segments of fifteen novels. There is also the fact that excerpts rarely benefit from group critique. Itâs one thing to get all those opinions when youâve finished, but when youâre still in the middle of a project itâs like having fifteen people give you conflicting directions as to how best to get to the interstate.) And so, with a couple of cheeseburger platters balanced up my arm, I began to teach myself how to write a novel while being a waitress.
No matter what youâre writingâstory, novel, poem, essayâthe first thing youâre going to need is an idea. As I said earlier, donât make this the intimidating part.
Up until that point there had never been any reason to doubt that my life was going to work out exactly according to script. I had thought I was a writer when I was a student, but would I still be a writer now that I was also a waitress? It was a test of love: How long would I stick around once things were no longer going my way? (Illustrative anecdote: Many years later, I was in London interviewing Ralph Fiennes for GQ . While we were at lunch the waiter approached to tell Fiennes how much he admired his work. âIâm an actor, too,â the waiter said as he held out a piece of paper for an autograph. Later I asked Fiennes how long he would have been willing to be a waiter who struggled to be an actor. Things had gone well for him pretty much right off the bat, but letâs say for the sake of argument that they hadnât and he had to pick up dirty plates and sweep up the crushed saltines of children. How much resilience had there been in his dream, and how far would he have slogged on without any signs of success? The actor shook his head. âI couldnât have done it,â he said.)
There were things I learned about writing while working as a waitress that I hadnât come to during my student years, and the first was my own level of commitment. As the months went by, I knew that I wrote because it was my joy, and if I kept on being a waitress forever, writing would still be my joy. But that didnât mean I didnât have plans to use writing as a means of escape. I had been unwaveringly loyal to my talent, and now that the chips were down I expected it to be loyal to me. With so much time for thinking and so little time for writing, I learned how to work in my head. Between pilfering croutons off salad plates and microwaving fudge sauce for the sundaes, I decided I was going to make up a novel, and that the novel was going to get me out of the restaurant. The novel was going to be my getaway car.
From the moment I walked into Allan Gurganusâs class, I had been utterly devoted to the short story. When people asked me when I planned to write a novel, I would say, If I were a violinist, would you ask me when I was going to play the viola just because itâs bigger? (Shake your head in pity here for the self-righteous undergraduate.) But I had gotten myself into a novel-sized hole, and I knew it was going to take a lot more than a story to save me. The problem was that I had received a massive and expensive education in how to write short stories, and not so much as a correspondence course in how to write a novel. (I realize now this is largely a matter of time, logistics, and to some degree patience. A teacher may be willing to read fifteen short stories a week, but no one can read rambling, lengthy, decontextualized segments of fifteen novels. There is also the fact that excerpts rarely benefit from group critique. Itâs one thing to get all those opinions when youâve finished, but when youâre still in the middle of a project itâs like having fifteen people give you conflicting directions as to how best to get to the interstate.) And so, with a couple of cheeseburger platters balanced up my arm, I began to teach myself how to write a novel while being a waitress.
No matter what youâre writingâstory, novel, poem, essayâthe first thing youâre going to need is an idea. As I said earlier, donât make this the intimidating part.
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