Is Your Calling Serving You? by Monica Wilcox

I am very excited to welcome Monica Wilcox back as a FemCentral guest blogger!

Writing fiction for me is a grand relationship with the Universe. Here’s just one example:

I’m out walking my beagle when I hear the words of this homeless woman who I clearly see in my imagination sitting on the street corner of a dying town, “Quarter for a call?”  But she’s not asking me, she’s asking a man who is lost, lost in about every way a person can be lost, and with that single question an entire book is before me. The plot is flowing, insights are being shared and all I’ve got is a dog leash and a plastic poop bag. But I know (Oh Lordy, how I know) they’ve only just begun.  Five hours later I couldn’t take it anymore. I sat down and typed out the gist of their story as quickly and concisely as I could. I’ve learned that if I don’t write it down I’ll be the unwilling participant of an all night slumber party.

Yeap, this is my life, it’s always been my life. I remember lying on my bed at four, sucking my fingers as a pack of imaginary alley cat’s told me how they were secretly running the local oil refinery. People repeatedly ask me how I knew I was supposed to write. The real question is how I couldn’t know?

If you’re still searching for your calling I start by paying attention to your day dreams. Where does your mind sneaking off to when you’re not controlling it? Could it be that thing you were playing out at 8, dreamed about at 18, pondered at 38?

What drove me to finally write was self-preservation.  I’d had these two women in my head for two years, hashing over and over the same tragedy, night after night.  So I gave in, “Okay, okay, I’ll do it!” As if the calling of the Universe is a chore. As if the very reason we’re sucking oxygen from the atmosphere is a task. Like “get on and get it over with already!”  (Rolling eyes!)

If the Universe is anything, it is patience.

Following Your Calling

Now I can’t go more than three days without stringing words or I become a morose zombie.  Every time I write I get to open doors imaginary and let strangers speak, and the best part is I don’t have to feed them or change the guest bed sheets. Scenes morph, rooms decorate themselves, and little meaningless trinkets pop up three chapters later in startling symbolism. Hours pass and joy seeps from my pores. I hoop and holler around the house like I’ve just lived through the best story ever told.  I don’t need the New York Times or The Book Review or 30,000 sold copies (that’s what it takes to be a bestseller) to live this joy. It’s pure and authentic and lives on its own accord. It doesn’t rely on the opinion of another to have value. It can just BE.

Writing for me is a transcendental trip.

You’ll know you have found your passion when you’re beaming unconditional joy.  What gives you that instantaneous smile, as if God has shared a delectable secret and it’s killing you not to share it?

What has kept me at this book for 8 years, with no promise of publication, with no agent driving me?  It’s simple really.  Writing takes me places where I get to experience things I could never possibly KNOW on my own. I understand that what I am doing is bigger than a check, or a title, or any widow office; bigger than me.

If the Universe is anything, it is expansion.

This is it! Or is it?

By all accounts I was destined to sit at a desk in the corner of my bedroom until I could no longer see the keys of a key board, telling tales, cranking out a body of work. And I was doing just that until something happened. I got in the way of my own work.

I had finished the first draft of my book after 5 years. I loved the overall plot, the moral, and the general flow but one of the two main characters was…flat. She was foggy in my mind and her voice was sketchy and weak. I knew I had to rewrite her half of the book, but to do that she had to come forward and define herself. What I didn’t know and had to learn was that the two of us were linked. Until I grew, she could not.

Here’s where the Universe comes in. If I were tell you that characters actually exist you’d probably buy me a fast track pass to the Funny Farm. But let me ask if you’ve ever read The Hound of the Baskervilles?  Maybe not, but I bet you’ve heard of Sherlock Holmes. Now you have an image of a very specific man in your mind. Over time and space you and I are experiencing the same character together: the dapper hat, a hooked pipe and broad coat. I’m sure you’ve known ol’ Sherlock for some time, long before Hollywood got a hold of him.  You can even hear his voice, “Elementary, my dear Watson.” For millions of people, generation after generation, Sherlock Holmes resides in our memory. He possesses his own energy, a purpose, a well-defined life.  He’s as real and as untouchable to you and me as Gandhi.

I’m convinced that on some level characters are real, as real as I am. Where they came from, where they reside when the last page is written, I do not know. But I can say this: my character wanted to tell me her story but I wasn’t ready to hear it. I had to venture into some dark spaces, throw open some squeaky doors and do some exploring. Three years ago I wasn’t ready to write her story; three years ago I would not have believed it.

And through that process I discovered an even deeper truth. The Universe doesn’t want me to sit in a corner and dictate; my writing, my work, my calling are the tools we are given for self exploration and soul expression.  As Sherrie Dillard said to me, “The only fear you should have with this book is not that it won’t be published but that you won’t expand to the highest possible level writing it, which means these women won’t either.”

My purpose is not to write, I write to live my purpose.     

Ultimately, our calling must serve us as much as it serves another.  Go ahead, plug your calling into this statement and see how it feels. Does it make you smile and tickle your heart? Does it make you hoop and holler around the house? If so, you’re on track. If not, pack your bags. It’s time for you to do some exploring.

Because if the Universe is anything, it is promise.

Read more of Monica’s writing on FemCentral, and at her website, Femme Tales-Truth with Humor.