The Decision to Dive

In her book I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was (one of my all-time favorites), Barbara Sher helps readers discover what they want to do with their lives. One of the chapters I've been re-reading recently discusses "divers" versus "scanners."

Sher describes a scanner as "a person who delights in the astonishing, unending variety around us."* I prefer to call this group snorkelers because it keeps better with the water theme.

A diver, on the other hand, "want[s] to go deeper and deeper into your subject until you dedicate your entire life to it."**

Until yesterday, I was a diver in denial.

I've tried diving before but felt like I was drowning and gave up, quickly exiting the water before giving myself time to see if I really was drowning or if I simply needed a moment to adjust to the depths. After deserting my dive, I'd look around at all the other rivers, lakes, oceans and ponds available to me feeling completely overwhelmed to the point of simply standing there. Eventually, I'd drag my suddenly heavy body to each pool, dipping in a toe, glancing back longingly at the pool I'd dived into and deserted. Then I'd force myself to refocus only to find myself looking around again at the vast bodies of water I still felt compelled to try, all the while, my resolve shriveling up as did my toe thoughtlessly forgotten in the water at my feet.

With a jerk, I'd yank my pruned toe from the pool, throwing my shoulders back determined to try again and attack as many pools as possible. The harder I tried the more I despaired. I know why now. I was trying to be a snorkeler, a "jack of all trades," and never feeling fulfilled.

I tried writing fiction for children, writing news stories for the local paper, drafting a simply dreadful 'novel' in 30 days as part of National Novel Writing Month and started and stopped enough articles, stories and ideas to fill up the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet. While I have had luck with one or two articles outside of the newspaper, I've always felt too inundated with research to get motivated to write for any periodicals so I always gave only a half-hearted attempt (except once with The Writer and that one, I think, would have actually worked out if I'd had more publishing credits) and of course, inevitably, received rejection after rejection after rejection.

I've tried spiritual journaling, diary writing and freestyle writing (as suggested by Natalie Goldman in Writing Down the Bones). I signed up for Twitter, Facebook and BlogCatalog for my original blog (writingfortheloveofit.com) but, after a recent trauma, writing simply for the love of it won't work any more. I finally have a purpose - to write my story in hopes of helping others. But I can't dive into that calling until I stop trying to snorkel in every existing pool of water.

For some people, endless options inspire them. They are snorkelers. They get energy from dipping into as many pools as they can as quickly as they can and then jumping to the next one as soon as they've seen what they wanted to in whichever river, lake or stream they just explored. For me, just watching them is exhausting. So, I've decided today to embrace the diver in me.

I could have it all wrong. I could be a snorkeler pretending to be a diver but the thought of focusing on only one thing got me so excited yesterday that when I got home from work, I dropped the mail on the counter, kicked off my shoes, walked right past the piles of books and papers strewn about and, without grabbing any food or water (very unusual for me), came straight to the computer to write this with my work clothes still on. It's rare for me to feel like that with writing so I must embrace it when it comes.

Sher recommends that those, like me, who think they might be unhappy divers commit to something just for 30 days. It's possible this blog will end in 30 days. In college, I changed majors 7 times. After college, I went back to school and changed again another 3 times. But I think this blog will last beyond 30 days because, as with my choice of college studies, I haven't been happy until now when I finally settled on English (teaching literature and writing on the side).

As might be obvious from the name of this blog, my particular calling is to memoir writing. It's all I can think about. So, from here on out, this blog is dedicated to my dive into the world of writing a memoir. While I've got plenty of material for the book in progress (over 200 pages of journaling in the past 2 1/2 months alone), I'm only just beginning my dive into putting it altogether. If you too are a chronicler, I hope you'll dive right in here with me, pulling me back when I freak out and try to exit the dive at the best part and encouraging me not to give up when I get stuck in a cave and can't find my way out.

If you're ready to dive, join me next week when I explore the world of Twitter. Is it beneficial or harmful to those of us writing books and memoirs?

Until next week, keep diving!

RJ

*Sher, Barbara. I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. Dell Publishing, New York, 1994: P 101

** Sher, Barbara. I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was. Dell Publishing, New York, 1994: P 102