The Waiting Game and Other Untold Stories

For years, I was an advertising copywriter with a secret desire to write a book. You’re thinking, how hard could that be, writing is writing, right? If only. Penning a novel not only seemed like a daunting task, I believed only highly gifted writers could legitimately do it and be taken seriously. One needed permission or approval like from an English teacher or colleague to tap your shoulder and declare: Wow, you’re really good. You should write a novel!

No such tap happened; still, I waited.

As a newlywed working at my first ad agency, often a story would form in my head along with its cast of characters. Their voices never left me alone. They nudged me when I’d wash the dishes, occupied my thoughts while I drove, and comprised the last utterances I heard before drifting off to sleep.

I’d sit down to write, excited at first, until another voice would start whispering in my ear that my story fell flat. It’s been done. No one will read this piece of trash. All of it screamed: You’re not good enough. So I’d quit—over and over.

When my husband and I moved our young family across the country for a job opportunity and his travel schedule escalated, I found myself again waiting. It felt like I was stuck standing in one of those endless amusement park lines, waiting for him to return from a business trip; waiting to do what I wanted with my career; waiting to stop being so afraid of everything. Finally, I asked myself: what exactly am I waiting for?

Courage. And waiting for someone else to grant me some was never going to happen. I needed to find it on my own.

Since I’d been out of the creative writing vein for a while, I looked into classes. After grappling with the excuse that I wouldn’t have the time to add another thing to my already hectic life, I enrolled in an online writing class. Finally, I was moving forward.

Even though it was a virtual classroom, I was intimidated at first. I didn’t know what to expect and wondered if I would be able to keep up. I discovered that being back in a learning environment and discussing setting, plot, characters, and voice was exhilarating. Even the homework assignments were thrilling. Yes, the homework! I felt like I was back in middle school writing stories again and it fed me. I gobbled up every assignment, hungry for the next.

After the course completed, I reflected on a writing prompt we’d had for one of our assignments: I began to question the wisdom of this trip. While my class wrote travel stories, I composed a short piece about a 16-year-old girl taking LSD alone in her family’s basement. Months later the story pulled at me and I started asking questions. Why is this girl alone in her house taking LSD for the first time? Where are her friends, her parents? What led her to do such a thing? Slowly these threads began my first novel: I Like You Like This.

After being turned down by several agents and frankly not knowing what I was doing, a friend of a friend told me about an independent publisher, She Writes Press. I queried and amazingly enough, they accepted my manuscript.

Months leading up to my book launch, I inquired about teaching a teen writing workshop at a local bookstore. I had enjoyed being back in the classroom with other writers and thought it might be fun to facilitate that same experience. I was nervous, but the young writers put me at ease. Their work inspired me, yet I kept witnessing that same nagging fear in them: Is my work good enough? YES! I told them that they’re words mattered and to keep writing.

Today, I lead young writers workshops at high schools, libraries, and bookstores. Their parents often accompany them to the ones outside of school. Sometimes the mom or dad joins the workshop, but more often, a few parents will lurk around the semi-circle of chairs or poke their head inside the classroom. They leave and come back, listen for a few minutes, and leave again. When they return to collect their teen, we often discuss the subject of writing. Ninety-nine percent of the time, these lurking parents are closet writers.

They confide that they used to write and have a story (or two) or a notebook of poems in a drawer somewhere. When I ask why they aren’t writing now, I’m met with a bevy of excuses: kids, career, or the worst one: I’m too old now.

Really? Do you have any idea how old I am? I find it interesting that they’ll take their teen to a workshop but don’t give themselves permission to take a seat. I call them out on it and encourage them to write their story. Because it’s never too late. Take it from the one who once waited for that shoulder tap, this business of waiting for permission is BS. It holds us back and ultimately steals our joy. It’s in our nature to write with abandonment—come what may. We write because we each have something to say.

To my fellow closet writers, young and old, stop waiting and start writing your story. Push through the self-doubt. Whether you’re in the classroom or alone in front of your laptop, give yourself permission to take that seat. You are worthy. Your words matter.

Just write.

—

Heather Cumiskey is an award-winning young adult author. Her first book, I Like You Like This, received the 2017 Moonbeam Children’s Book Bronze Award and was a Finalist in both the 2017 USA Best Book Awards and 2018 International Book Awards. Its sequel: I Love You Like That publishes August 2019. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three sons.

Catch up with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram or at HeatherCumiskey.com.

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I LIKE YOU LIKE THAT

Perfect for fans of If There’s No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout, What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum, and All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, I Love You Like That is the second book in a poignant young adult duology about addiction, sexuality, peer pressure, and first love.

Reeling from the recent “death” of Deacon, her dark and mysterious former boyfriend and first love, sixteen-year-old Hannah Zandana lets herself fall into the arms of the wrong boys—even as her mother’s growing addiction continues to pull her family apart. With her mother hardly functional and her father in full-blown denial, Hannah and her little sister are left to their own devices—and no adult support—in their lives.

After waking up in a strange hospital outside of town, meanwhile, Deacon learns that his convenient “death” has placed him in the middle of a federal undercover sting operation. He’s soon thrown into the dangerous world of Miami drug cartels.

Will a cruel deception and a family’s unresolved grief forever change Deacon and Hannah, or can a love that once was, reignite and lead them back to one another?

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing