Nanette on Being a Writer

Nanette shares how she came to be an author.

Why am I a writer? Let me count the ways...

My initial experience with writing was through journaling in my late adolescence, learning to choose exactly the right word to express what I perceived as my unique emotional states. I secretly harbored the idea that I would write the next generation’s great American novel after exposure to such luminaries as Thomas Wolfe and Saul Bellow in college literature courses.

Then reality stepped in and my nascent writing career was quickly eclipsed by marriage and motherhood. Still, I pursued my dream through omnivorous reading, formidable titles supplied by my highly educated husband, who modeled the list on the 100 Great Books Series.

At last, my chance came. My husband, Jim, decided to abandon his bureaucratic career in Washington, D.C., and took a job at a four-year college in Minnesota, where I could once again pick up my degree-focused education to better prepare myself for writing. Three years later I had that cherished baccalaureate, majoring in English and Social Science. Now, my writing career will take off, I thought to myself.

Alas, I was wrong. With five children and college bills to pay off, I reluctantly signed up to teach middle school children English grammar and history. Despite my wholehearted efforts to throw myself into this very first career of my life, it quickly devolved into the year from hell. Without administrative support, I struggled with unruly (kind word) boys, learning-indifferent girls, and over-extended parents in a farming community that was experiencing an economic melt-down.

After I was fired (for contacting parents whose children were openly fighting in the classroom), I gave careful consideration to alternative careers (other than teaching, of course). I tried a stint in the mental health field and corrections, neither of which ignited my intellect or enthusiasm. When my husband recommended graduate school, I leaped at the chance, and promptly signed up for two summer sessions in Sociology. Why Sociology? I needed topical material. What does a mother have to say about the world? Or about life, for that matter? I was far too consumed with the practical aspects of homemaking and childcare to even think about creative writing.

Sociology offered an incredible array of fascinating topics: social class, gender, social problems, social structure, urban life and the intricacies of institutional behavior. I quickly became a devotee, absorbing new knowledge and social understandings. Women’s issues offered the greatest appeal, and because the field was under investigated, I chose prostitution as my master’s topic. I interviewed 30 working prostitutes, all of whom I discovered had complicated lives unrelated to their notorious profession. After that, the grind of thesis writing. A creative outburst? Forget it. I wrote an entire thesis—all from the heart—but the would-be masterpiece was rejected by the committee (not enough sociology; too personal; what about validity; etc.). I learned the hard way to write in a different genre: sociologese, otherwise known as academic sociology (a writing style I am still struggling to overcome).

Teaching college full-time managed to pay the bills, but provided little time for the writing career I had promised myself, especially with mounting pressure from administrators to pursue ongoing professional development. Fortunately, academic journals welcomed my early writings on prostitution and other social problems. It seemed logical to move forward into a Ph.D. program, following my esteemed scholar-husband into the academy.

Pursuing a traditional academic track, I took advanced courses for three years (plenty of term paper writing here), followed by a dissertation, this time on the newly emerging issue of abortion. Here, I continued to engage in my favorite research techniques: scholarly exegesis and live interviews. After writing a 400-page dissertation (I’m still not sure anybody read the entire piece), I received a department commendation, a Ph.D. and was sent on my way.

Now the work really began. From the sheltered academic milieu, I shifted into the competitive academic marketplace with its latent, but ever present motto: Publish or Perish. I soon discovered two standards existed: one for women—publish or risk your job; and the other for men—if you don’t publish, we’ll send you upstairs (administration) with a large increase in pay, or maybe give you departmental jobs that will keep you busy enough. So much for equality. In fact, within the first few years of my tenure-track job, I was involved in a sticky class-action suit involving gender equity.

To write—even to survive—I needed to leave most of the nonsense behind: office politics, legal discord, coffee and after-hours cocktails with colleagues. I suppose I became the department drudge, but I began a writing program that eventually produced eight books and more than 100 scholarly articles over the next two decades. I rarely stayed long with a subject. My favorite way of working was to identify a topic that spoke to me—say, domestic violence, homeless girls, international prostitution, youth or aging—and research it for a year or so. Delving ever deeper into the field, I sought to identify the critical issues, and explore them more completely in academic papers, articles, and eventually, books on some of the topics. I found I could actually "crank out" the words, and once familiar with the computer, generate a chapter draft within days. Writing in this way was my new high; like a drug, I craved those moments I could return to my keyboard.

But nothing lasts forever, does it? My greatest booster, editor and friend, Jim, began his slow decline after two heart attacks and a series of strokes. Both of us battled his illness, but to no avail. The medical term was heart failure; the human meaning was disastrous: loss of self; loss of intellect, personality, mental acuity and capacity for self-care. While caring for Jim in and out of institutions for four years, I learned a new mode of being: slow observation, patience, generosity of spirit and returning to my writing origins: the ever-faithful journal. I became the total caregiver, living for his needs, but taking stock in a conscious way of what was happening both to him and to me.

A year after Jim passed, I began my interviews—ultimately talking to more than 60 caregivers—and with it my healing and restoration. Blessed is She… Elder Care: Women’s Stories of Choice, Challenge and Commitment was not only the title of my ninth book, but also pointed the way to an entirely different mode of thinking and writing. Empathy and intuition became my new tools to unearth meanings and seek the truth of experience by having lived through it. And such support I had for this book from two of my daughters, Susan and Patti, gifted writers and editors!

Still, for some, Blessed is She has too many traces of the academic model: too many statistics and not enough soul. I’ve now decided to move forward with another writing venture: "The Little Book of Elder Caregiving," which will incorporate highlights from the book, but also, greater focus on the rewards and gifts of caregiving. And it will really be a small book, perhaps only three by five inches and a mere 25 pages.

I believe I have come full-circle, but not quite the original circle I had in mind. I propose that writing non-fiction can be just as creative, illuminating and evocative as fiction, especially when you keep the story line clear, and recognize the mysteries of life that continue to unfold.

(This essay was originally published in the November issue of the WWP newsletter.)