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Why I'm a writer, not a scientist
Dec. 13th, 2009 05:37 pmWhen I was in graduate school, one of the professors on my thesis advisory committee told me he didn't think I was committed enough to graduate school and the work I was doing. At the time, I was flummoxed. I was there; I put in all-nighters at least once a week it seemed, and I was a go-to person for orienting people to the lab & procedures. Also, for having references handy or knowing where to find who had done something. How dare he say that I wasn't committed?
He held up one of his own students (one of my classmates) as an example of what a graduate student should be. "He's always thinking about new experiments, new things to try. When he's out running, he's thinking about the latest results. When he's eating, he comes up with new variables." And so on. All this managed to do was give me a resentment of a very nice guy who was always very helpful -- and who was *almost* as good a cook as I was. (He made very good chocolate soufflés, but he almost got an egg in his face when I was helping him at a party and he seemed surprised that I knew to crack eggs I was going to separate in a small dish in case the yolk broke. Okay, not really. I was just tempted to walk out of the kitchen. Let him crack his own eggs if he doesn't think I'm competent. Then we got into a discussion on the varied actions of copper bowls and cream of tartar for incorporation of air into the egg whites, and all was forgiven.)
I'm writing about this now because I finally get what the professor was saying.
Oh, I figured out long ago that I wasn't meant for a career in science, and the thought of running a lab and teaching and applying for grants is the stuff of nightmares. But I figured out he wasn't talking about commitment in terms of time and energy. He was talking about passion.
Like the way I say, "Oh, it's Monday -- there's a new Writing Excuses podcast to download and listen to!" Or the way I tear the wrapper off the new Locus, even if I only have time at the moment to look at the "People & Publishing." It's the way I hunt out new agent, editor, and author blogs to get different views on the industry -- and follow them on Twitter as well because I want to know what's going on. It's the way I keep trying to figure out how to get more time in my day so I can commit more of my ideas to screen, even though there are so many I will have to abandon because there is no time to do them all. It's in the way I watch TV and see how plot lines are being developed and themes crossed and events foreshadowed and think about what techniques I might want to use in my own work. It's being really happy with my plan for a book I've barely started -- and getting a brainstorm for a parallel plot that intensifies everything. It's that my entire life is saturated with writing and becoming better at this and writing and getting published . . . and writing.
It all comes back to the writing.
I have found my passion, and it's more than a commitment. On the other hand, getting a guy to say "commitment" was pretty impressive, without expecting a scientist to talk about "passion," too. ;-)
He held up one of his own students (one of my classmates) as an example of what a graduate student should be. "He's always thinking about new experiments, new things to try. When he's out running, he's thinking about the latest results. When he's eating, he comes up with new variables." And so on. All this managed to do was give me a resentment of a very nice guy who was always very helpful -- and who was *almost* as good a cook as I was. (He made very good chocolate soufflés, but he almost got an egg in his face when I was helping him at a party and he seemed surprised that I knew to crack eggs I was going to separate in a small dish in case the yolk broke. Okay, not really. I was just tempted to walk out of the kitchen. Let him crack his own eggs if he doesn't think I'm competent. Then we got into a discussion on the varied actions of copper bowls and cream of tartar for incorporation of air into the egg whites, and all was forgiven.)
I'm writing about this now because I finally get what the professor was saying.
Oh, I figured out long ago that I wasn't meant for a career in science, and the thought of running a lab and teaching and applying for grants is the stuff of nightmares. But I figured out he wasn't talking about commitment in terms of time and energy. He was talking about passion.
Like the way I say, "Oh, it's Monday -- there's a new Writing Excuses podcast to download and listen to!" Or the way I tear the wrapper off the new Locus, even if I only have time at the moment to look at the "People & Publishing." It's the way I hunt out new agent, editor, and author blogs to get different views on the industry -- and follow them on Twitter as well because I want to know what's going on. It's the way I keep trying to figure out how to get more time in my day so I can commit more of my ideas to screen, even though there are so many I will have to abandon because there is no time to do them all. It's in the way I watch TV and see how plot lines are being developed and themes crossed and events foreshadowed and think about what techniques I might want to use in my own work. It's being really happy with my plan for a book I've barely started -- and getting a brainstorm for a parallel plot that intensifies everything. It's that my entire life is saturated with writing and becoming better at this and writing and getting published . . . and writing.
It all comes back to the writing.
I have found my passion, and it's more than a commitment. On the other hand, getting a guy to say "commitment" was pretty impressive, without expecting a scientist to talk about "passion," too. ;-)
