THE SOLARIUM

My mother wanted to be an author, too.

When she was a little older than I am now, she wrote a novel called Perfectionists in Love. Since it was an adult novel and I was a little kid, I never read it. Neither has anyone else—it was never published.

She got an editor to take interest in it, but when he asked her to make a few revisions, she blew up and refused. Invectives toward that editor filled our household for months. Invectives in general were common—my dad, a military man, swears in just about every sentence, and, just then, the two of them were on a collision course toward divorce.

I remember those months of seething resentment, the screams behind closed doors, the manuscript I never read. I never knew what changes that editor wanted to make, but I knew the kind of woman my mother was.

She prided herself on her intellect and valued education, so much so that she homeschooled me for two years. There were months when we would struggle to afford groceries by the end because she had spent so much on books at the beginning.

She was a capital-A Artist with very little to say to anyone who wasn’t.

She was fearless to a fault, willing to burn a bridge while standing in the middle. At the time, I couldn’t understand how any hardship could be worth abandoning my siblings and I. I couldn’t see her relationship with our father as the dangerous, rotting thing it was or comprehend the courage it took to leave with nothing.

She had no job, no prospects, no promise of support anywhere. All she had was the belief that she deserved better. I respect her for chasing that. I hope that, one day, I’ll have the courage to do the same.

She was right not to compromise herself by staying in an abusive marriage. Maybe she was right not to compromise with that editor, too. I’ll never know. But the world will never know what a talented artist my mother was. I will never know what my life would have been like if she stayed a part of it.

Is a compromised vision worse than never being seen at all?

Personally, my mother’s story is always with me—a shadow that dims the light of my ego ever so slightly. Not enough to make me doubt my worth, but enough to make me open to compromise.

I always try to receive feedback about my writing with an open mind, even if it’s advice I don’t necessarily agree with, or if it misses my original intent. I think of it as an opportunity to consider my intent with greater scrutiny.

Okay, yes, maybe I was using shorter, more abrupt sentences here on purpose for a particular effect, but if the effect it’s having on the reader is to make the writing stilted and unenjoyable, maybe it’s time for a little creative problem-solving. How else can I get my point across?

It feels beyond banal to point it out, but the revision process really is just that—an opportunity to re-envision your project, a chance to do things differently. Why refuse to even consider new perspectives? Why not experiment?

Some advice is more useful than others. Obviously you can’t—and shouldn’t—compromise everything that makes your writing unique, or every element of the story you want to tell.

It’s a balancing act, and a difficult one, but you’re not doing yourself any favors by refusing to the get on the tightrope.

I’m going to talk scheduling in a second, but first I want to share one of my mother’s paintings. Maybe it will only be seen by one or two people, but I’ll feel better knowing that it’s out in the world. I like to think she would, too.

“When eyes look everywhere with love, they open.

Shine your lights.”

***

I chose compromise as my theme this week in part because I finished revising “Lemon Squares in All Dimensions” and have been proofreading Amethyst the Assassin, both works that I’ve received a lot of feedback on over the years.

Each had elements I would never surrender, mistakes worth fixing, and indulgent little moments of weirdness ultimately sacrificed on the altar of pacing, plot, etc.

I’ve also had to compromise with myself in terms of scheduling. I did not get everything I had planned for this week done. Maybe half of it. It’s easy to beat myself up over the half I didn’t get to, but this week was not without its accomplishments: I finished revising “Lemon Squares”, and I should be done proofing ATA in a couple of days.

I’m compromising moving forward, too. I have two longer, more analytical projects in mind, and so far I’ve gotten little done for either because I’ve been splitting time between them both. One is likely to interest significantly more people than the other.

To be clear, this isn’t a choice between “passion project” and “thing I don’t care about that might get attention.” I’m interested in both options. The more obscure option just excites me more.

Time’s ticking. I had to choose. Ultimately, I decided to trust that I’ll still be passionate about the more obscure (and more time-intensive) project in the future.

So, what analytical project am I going to be working on in the following weeks? What is it about? Will it be worth the compromise?

Come back in January to find out!