What is Mine to Do?

More than a year ago, I read a blog post on WriterUnboxed that is still haunting me today—in the best way possible. “What is Yours to Do?” asks one of my spotlighted authors, Barbara O’Neal. Though that question can be used to prioritize small things as well as big ones, she quickly turns to writing—because what is Barbara’s to do is to write novels. “You are unique, and your work is unique. In all the world,” she reminds us, adding reinforcement from Madeline L’Engle:  “If you don’t do your work, it might not ever get done.”

Four years ago, I added non-fiction books about boats and their folks to my list of what is mine to do. At the time, I thought 100 Years of Gold Stars would be a momentary distraction from my favorite fictional island. But that project soon led to another; writing a book about a boat called Hound. And with so many great stories lurking just beneath every casual sailing conversation, who knows what rabbit hole I might stumble down next? 

My grandmother described herself as a novelist, and she was the earliest inspiration for my own writing (read more in Live an Interesting Life). But I identify as either “writer” or “author,” because my work has always been about more than “just” fiction. 

What is mine to do? Right now, it feels like sharing other people’s stories is more important than dreaming up my own. But over almost four decades of imaginary surprises, I’ve learned that the best stories stick with us; “hounding” their scribes until we wall off the mind-space to polish them into something both shareable and memorable. 

In a more recent post, Barbara O’Neal writes that Art “needs us, our hands and heart and heads, to focus on bringing our little piece of Art into the world.” And then she makes sure to add that “once we start taking it all too seriously, we lose the thread.”

So instead of worrying about the (delightful) distractions of digging up stories that actually happened, I’m going to accept that it’s all part of my joyous job: creating something that might just move the world—or, better still, inspire just one other writer, more than year later, to ponder for themselves: what is mine to do?