From Edie: Ane Mulligan shares how writers can embrace life changes, find inspiration in new beginnings, and turn unexpected experiences into meaningful stories and creative opportunities.
How Writers Can Embrace Life Changes and Turn Them Into Stories
by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan
In 2020, the world faced a dramatic life change—forced distancing resulting in many closed businesses. We had to stop socializing; a hard thing for humans who were created for fellowship. Don't even get me started on extroverts—forced isolation found many standing at windows, starved for the sight of another human. Some were found huddled in a corner, whimpering through 2020 and into 2021.
We can fall victim to other changes as well. A job change, a move to another city, a death, and a host of others can affect us. It's how we look at those that's the secret. It helps to realize they all come with a new beginning.
New beginnings always mean change. Now don't get me wrong. I like change. Really ... I do. I just don't like abrupt change. It rattles me.
There are some people—we all know them—who are so well-put-together, they never get dithered. Unflappable, these folks breeze through life. For the rest of you, whose lives are buffeted by change, welcome to my world. I've always felt one step behind. I embrace a new fashion the day it goes out of style.
It starts the day we're born, you know. From the moment we enter the world, things keep changing. Close your eyes and go back to your younger days. No, no, further back. There. Life was pretty good inside that womb. We were warm, fed, no worries ... then, just as you perfected that dropkick to your mama's left kidney, something started pressing in on you, forcing you into a different world. Your lifeline was cut, someone slapped your bottom, and you had to start breathing on your own. Before you could clock the doc on the chops, you were whisked away to be weighed and measured. Come to think of it, not everything has changed—they still do that to me at the gym.
Fast forward a few years and we encountered more life-altering events: Our first day of kindergarten, then elementary school with stinky boys, middle school where the boys weren't so stinky any more, and then high school when you finally got your own room with a closet all to yourself.
It seems to me that about the time I finally got a handle on being a daughter, you know—getting along with antiquated parents after all I learned in college—I was getting married. There's an eye-opener for you. Suddenly I had a side of the bed and half a closet – again.
I love peanut butter and banana sandwiches. He doesn't do peanut butter. My culinary expertise maxed out at Jell-O, and he expected me to replicate his mom in the kitchen. Please, she makes Chateaubriand and Crème Brûlée where you use one of those blowtorch thingies. My degree was in communications not meatloaf.
There was so much change in that first year of marriage. I won't even go into the child-rearing years—that's a column for another day. Let's fast-forward to the day I waved goodbye and closed the door to find my nest empty. The silence echoed around me. I had what I'd searched years for – time to discover myself. But who was I?
For the first time in more than 20 years, no one was demanding my time or my brain cells. So I asked God, "What now?" In his infinite wisdom and galactic humor, he said "How's this for a change? Write a book." Yikes! Even funnier, he said make it fiction.
Why is that funny you may ask? Picture this: a mature woman walking down the street, talking to herself. Not so strange, you say? Well, this one is carrying on a two-sided conversation. Did you know that a single fiction writer can clear out an elevator in a New York minute? What's not so funny is now most of my friends are imaginary.
Looking back, the changes I've faced along the way were all preparation. I went from daughter to wife to mother to mother-in-law to grandmother. I've been a retail clerk, a long distance operator, a waitress, a hairdresser, a medical business manager, a lobbyist, a drama director – and now an author.
But at each new beginning I face, if I look for it, I can find delight in venturing out of my comfort zone. So, embrace the changes sent your way, and if they're hard ones, look for the humor in them. After all, all life is fodder for a writer.
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