Develop a Plan B

I’m probably going to try to get into an MFA program. If I get funding, someone will actually be paying me to sit around and write! Plus health insurance, plus social respectability… the hat trick of bourgeois bohemia.

if it’s Plan A or Plan B yet, I think the plan itself (to adopt a child) is fairly well set. I have a ways to go in actually implementing it, but then I have a ways to go before I’d be ready to. The bottom line is, even if I do not manage to pull off the marriage-baby-house scenario, I needn’t give up on the concept of motherhood all together. That’s all I really needed to know, I guess.

I could always adopt a child. I know it’d be tough, but life’s tough anyway.

about a girl from my 5th grade class – Rosa, I believe her name was. On the first day of school, our teacher pulled out that age-old exercise: asking us, one by one, what we wanted to be when we grew up – presumably to get to know us, though in retrospect it seemed more a way to try and classify us. Rosa, I remember, wanted to be a housewife. (If you’d known Rosa, you’d understand why none of us were surprised at that – at 10, she already looked like a mother, and she actually liked doing dishes. Insanity.)

Nobody else wanted to be a housewife. Doctors, firemen, teachers, sports stars…and my cheeky response of “millionaire.” (I was getting quite tired of this question by then, though I could not articulate it at the time…how could I possibly know at 10 what I wanted to be when I grew up? I couldn’t think much further ahead than summer vacation.) Furthermore, we all thought Rosa was a little weird for wanting nothing more than to be a housewife. I’d always assumed I’d be a wife and a mother in addition to being a millionaire, or astronaut, or writer. And I assumed my classmates all felt the same.

There’s been a discussion on one of the mailing lists I’m on about babies – who likes them and who doesn’t. (No, I don’t remember how that came about.) Among those who have spoken up, most appear to either dislike babies, or like them but not want them. (They’re by and large pet people, of which I am not. Maybe there’s something to that.) I’ve also noticed this attitude in conversations with various other people. I guess it just strikes me as odd, because I can’t remember not wanting a child, or knowing anyone (prior to the past ten years, anyway) who said they didn’t want one. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a small, Catholic town…maybe it’s a sign of shifting attitudes. But I’m starting to feel like Rosa.

Thing is, maybe there’s something to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I have some control over that, at least.

I’m thinking I should be able to pick up some cash by writing copy (freelance), and ideally this would allow me to be paid in dollars without having to live in America. Unfortunately, I don’t have a clue where to begin. How do I get my first copywriting gig?

I heard about an interesting sounding psych department in Buffalo. Who knows? It could happen.

Okay, after googling around for a while, it seems that the only kind of psychology that could interest me is known as “critical psychology”, or sometimes “radical psychology”. And it turns out the only academic programs in this field are located in… ba-dum dum… the UK. And one in Australia.

Hardly seems like a “safe bet”, even compared with novel writing. Looks interesting, though.

So for years now, I’ve had a plan for my life: write a novel. Find an agent. Get published. Receive accolades. Parlay accolades into further book deals, movie deals, fame, etc. Found an artists’ colony/commune/cult. Expand my artistic empire. Develop zombie army… after that it gets a little hazy, but you get the idea.

Well, it took me three years, but I completed step 1. Unfortunately, I’ve been a little stymied by step 2. What if I never get published? I’m going to have to find something else to do with the rest of my life.

So what can I do that won’t make me want to slit my wrists? And will make me enough money so my husband won’t resent me? And comes with enough social respectability so my parents won’t be ashamed of me?

My mom votes law school, but I’d rather die. Various people suggest grad school, but that only delays the problem. The only non-creative, non-academic field I can imagine enjoying is psychology. But of course, I don’t even have the undergrad requirements necessary to get into psych programs.

I also have no idea what country I’m going to be living in… ever. Hard to apply to grad schools with that kind of uncertainty in life.

Ugh. There’s got to be something I can do to earn an honest living.