What Is Yours to Do?
By Barbara O'Neal | May 2, 2023 |
A short time ago, a minister I knew passed away. We had not been in contact for quite a long time, but it was still piercing. He went too young, and it was a surprise, and as we all know, those are the deaths that catch us off guard, and I found myself thinking about him, about legacies, and what I learned from him. His most compelling physical trait was a twinkle in his eye, like he knew something magical he was about to impart.
And he did know magical things. The best thing I learned from him was something that keeps me company all the time:
What is mine to do?
What is MINE to do?
It’s a great phrase to keep in your back pocket. It can help sort out big and small questions alike: a busy holiday meal with too many people: what is mine to do here? Everything to make it the most perfect holiday of all time? Probably not. It’s probably more like feed everyone and make sure they all have a place to sit.
And a big question like, in writing, what is yours to do?
This is a pretty magical longing, this desire to write. Writing is healing, not just for you, but for the people who need your work, and I don’t mean in a self-help, elevated, or even literary way. Books don’t have to be mighty, big things to be powerful. Who among us has not been saved by a book, maybe many times?
I sure have been. So many times.
What is yours to do?
Who do you want to communicate with? Think about that. Maybe it’s your depressed, despairing 15- year-old self. Maybe it’s your professor from junior year in college, or your mom, or your future self, or the woman who is going through a divorce and doesn’t know how to get through it.
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that book, Eat Pray Love, and the women who responded in such enormous numbers knew exactly what she was saying to them. She was saying, it’s going to be okay. You can do this. You will find magic if you are true to yourself.
Madeline L’Engle writes in Walking on Water, her marvelous book about being true to your art, “If you don’t do your work, it might not ever get done.”
I’ve been hearing so much worry about AI writing books, putting us all out of business, but no one, especially a computer, can write your books. It’s impossible. Your writing is as unique as your life, as unique and strange and rare as the very fact that you are a being that is one of a kind in all of time and history.
It’s staggering to think about, actually. No one else has ever been you. No one else will ever be you, and even if you’re cloned in some future scenario, that clone won’t even be you, not really. It won’t have fallen down at age four and had to get stitches in its right hand. It won’t ever be able to have all the conversations you’ve had, read every newspaper column, kissed exactly the same people, taken the same walks. You are unique, and your work is unique. In all the world.
That’s mighty stuff, man.
What is yours to write?
As a young journalism student, I was deeply political and sure I would go into the world of exposès and maybe even foreign correspondence, to help people make sense of the world.
Now, I’m grateful for that journalism training and in particular Mr. Pavlick, who taught me so many things about how to be a professional writer that I could talk for hours about just that.
But anyone who knows me, or my work, or even knew me back then knows that a career like that was never going to be the one for me. I started writing novels when I was twelve years old, and by college, I’d written five, so if I looked at the evidence, the thing that was mine to do was write novels.
I was political and I remain so, and it is important to me to address the problems of the world, but I started to understand that I’d have a far better chance of changing hearts and minds in fiction. But not in literary fiction. That was not mine to do. I had been reading genre fiction in many forms my entire life.
As a young mom, trying to make my way in the writing world, find my place, the old phrase came to me, “The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.” Maybe if I wrote romances that obliquely addressed the issues that mattered to me, I could make a difference. Sometimes. On some issues.
That was mine to do. I ended up winning a $10,000 prize for a novel that addressed domestic violence, a book I wrote because there had been three young mothers killed by their partners over the course of a few months and I was furious—and heartbroken—about it.
What is yours to do?
The answer will probably change over time. Time happens to us. Our lives, all the events that shape us and change us. After a decade of writing romances, my marriage fell apart and I had to figure out a different life. And because your life is your art, as Wilton says, and your art reflects your life.
As I grappled with what I wanted my life to look like, I realized I wasn’t as interested in writing stories about finding a mate and building a family.
I became a lot more interested in work and what kind of difference that made in women’s lives, because I more or less chose my work over my marriage, as a lot of us are forced to do, one way or another. I wanted to write about that, and I wanted to write about other kinds of love and relationships, and families, and the relationship of women to each other and themselves and their work.
And their callings. I want to write about women who give themselves permission to live what life they want to live, and I hope that gives some of them courage sometimes.
What is yours to do? Who is your reader? What do you want to offer?
Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in more than 20 countries and spent many months on the Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. Barbara lives on the beach in rugged Oregon with her husband, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent and their zoo of cats and dogs. You can find more information on her newsletter and where to find her on social media at barbaraoneal.com.
[coffee]
I love this perspective! Not only for writing, but for life in general.
Ah, such a delight to wake up and find a Barbara O’Neal essay waiting to be savored. This one really delivers.
My bro-in-law recently visited. He’s about to hit the big six-oh and asked me if it bothered me (to be over 60). I was sort of surprised by the question, but also by the fact that I was able to emphatically say no, it doesn’t. I told him that it’s sort of focused me on what’s important, knowing how much nearer I am to the end than to the beginning. I was feeling pretty good about myself for a minute. A day or two later I found myself agonizing about how all the hot young epic fantasy writers seemed to be incorporating gaming and RPGs in their storytelling. In fact, there was a Twitter thing going around in the fantasy writing community where you tweeted which game was new and hot in the year you were born. Um… Chutes & Ladders?
Anyway, that’s just not my lane. But my lane is still viable. You’ve reminded me what’s mine to do. I can tell stories about life from before there was a thing called gaming and that’s a useful thing. My experience is unique and it has value. Thanks, Barbara. Perfect, as always. Can’t wait for the new book!
I get off-track like that, too, Vaughn. And I’m with you on being over 60. It’s crazy how much happier I am.
So very true, and you get to the heart of the matter, as always. I write not to right wrongs, but to help those in hard places, a reminder that things can work out, often in ways you can’t foresee right now, so keep swimming.
Thanks for this.
Yes! Keep swimming. Thanks, Laura.
How gorgeous and deep and true! Thank you!
Barbara, what a great way to express the importance of finding your way in the world! I realized recently that I needed to understand my life and how it fits together in way that has eluded me so far – to create a sort of personal business plan for my life, or to crib from Noel Coward, a design for living. I have writing projects I love – I simply don’t know how they fit into my life, which feels weird to say, and yet it’s true. The last few weeks have been a lot of thinking about what you’ve laid out, taking notes, reading, writing, drawing, walking, watching youtube videos on things like mind-mapping. Along the way I had insights about parts of it, like fireflies in the dark, beginning to outline something. Last night I drew the first draft/initial try mind-map with pictures, words, colors all coordinating. Yes, there are things to add, things to expand on, and yet it is stunning to see it in front of me. What is mine to do? A lot. And your post will be copied and put with my notes and probably referred to often as part of the discovery. Thanks!
I love the mind-mapping your way into a life you want to live. Beautiful.
Lovely, Barbara–a road to a fulfilling writing life and career.
Hi Barbara, thank you so much for this post. I don’t think it’s an accident that it landed on the day I learned of the death of Rabbi Harold Kushner, who when writing about the need for our lives to count for something, said, “We’re not afraid of dying so much as not having lived.” His books, in particular WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE and LIVING A LIFE THAT MATTERS, helped restore my spirit during a very dark time of my life. It’s so hard to let go of our beloved mentors—among them Anita, my therapist at the time of my husband’s suicide, Richard Carlson (YOU CAN BE HAPPY NO MATTER WHAT), and now Rabbi Kushner, two of whom I only ever knew on the page. My life experience tells me that finding the meaning within chaos reminds us of why it’s worth choosing life each and every morning. That is my work to carry on—not in the self-help realm, but through story. Mentoring other writers is an important component of that work. A teacher’s words, whispered over and over in a writer’s ears and then passed on to further generations just as my lessons were passed to me—added to my novels, which will live beyond me—create meaning within a great literary legacy. You’ve reminded me of how privileged I feel to do this work.
Thanks for these books, Kathryn. And from what I’ve seen of your students, your work in that realm is as powerful as your stories. Important stuff, that.
What a legacy, to leave a question like that on your mind! Thank you for sharing this memory and mantra.
I approached my last novel like this, with a clear idea of my belief that I could write truth about a universal yearning for love, family and home and that it is a bridge that can transcend cultures. What better way to portray it, I thought, than in a multicultural romance? I had many things to say as a woman to other women. Romance was the perfect format for that.
My almost-almost-done WIP is more for Creatives and misfits, to let them know that they matter, that their struggle to create is worth it, that there are many ways to be an artist, con-artists included.
Thank you for sharing this message today, reminding me to keep asking the important questions.
It sounds like you have an excellent handle on what is yours to do, Ada. Keep at it!
I could not have said it better, but what I can add is this: It is what you alone are given to write that is, when you set it down on the page, what we all connect to. The more the story comes just from you, the more it tells the story of all of us.
Powerful message today, Barbara. Thank you so much.
Love that. Yes, the more personal and intimate it is for each of us, the more our readers connect to the work and find us.
Hello Barbara, and thanks for writing well about writing.
“What is yours to do?” is a great question to pose at WU. For about a decade, I’ve been writing psychological mysteries, with a young woman journalist in the central role. But at some point I became convinced that what was truly mine to do would be to examine my own life, not to go on developing an imagined one. Yes, they’re all imagined, and any character a fiction writer dreams up begins with the writer. But I now wanted to focus on what seemed unique to my experience and self.
So that’s what I’ve been doing: focusing on what I think is especially true of me and my life, but what at the same time is simply my individual take on general experience. That is, the general experience of retired, aging, white male, more or less liberal members of the upper-middle class. To do this, I can’t be thinking about demographics, or a target audience, or to be on the lookout for marketing pitfalls. To do what is mine to do, I just have to stay “on message,” and hope I get it right.
What a great recognition, Barry. That sounds like a powerful project, and you’re right: thinking about demographics will be no help. Write on!
Barb, you’re a treasure! Thank you for this beautiful reflection on what is mine to do. It reminds me of charisms. We’ve all been given gifts and dreams and it is our duty to develop them and to offer them to others. I always thought I’d be a doctor–it was placed upon my heart as a child to heal. And it’s only after I started writing (also a childhood dream) that I discovered the healing power of words. As I look back, it’s books that have been the constant in my life–books that made me laugh, cry, challenge, grow and heal. Music too–did you know Gregorian chant actually heals? I joke about the five things I do–read, write, pray, sing, keep house. We are so blessed to have this writing life.
“No one else has ever been you…You are unique, and your work is unique. In all the world.” This so much. It reminds me of what St. Catherine of Sienna said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” Amen!
I did not know that about Gregorian chant, but it makes perfect sense–that intonation and exquisite harmony can move me to tears. And what a litany of a beautiful life: read, write, pray, sing, keep house. Thanks for this, Vijaya.
Oh, Barbara. That was a soulful piece, exactly what I needed to read this morning.
Like you, I was called to this work at a young age. I played hooky from sixth grade for almost a month so I could stay home and write my first novel. What kind of weird freaking kid does something like that?
One word: writer.
This is our work, Lord help us. It is ours to do. We err only in thinking we had a choice in the matter. Almost everything else is subordinate to it: relationships, jobs, food, sleep. It’s the call of the wild, and there are so many days I wish it would call on somebody else. It’s a hard life, and oftentimes an unrewarding one.
So, I will ask myself your friend’s question: What is mine to do? And I will think of you when I ask it.
Thank you for your post.
It is the call of the wild, but never wish it away. I might be a wee bit superstitious about that! Thanks for this energetic reply.
Dear Barbara, not much more to say here, but to honor all you have given to writing books, to showing others that motherhood and the ups and downs of life truly are the stuff that gets words on the page. If we lived lives of perfection, what would be left to say. If we always walked the smooth path, what would be left to learn. You led the way.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
Warm and winning words, Barbara. (You suspiciously resemble an approachable sage.) Mine is to make fresh word salads with light but savory dressing. Oh, and classic cocktails on the weekend.
Even your description is fresh and engaging and you.
I always knew I would write in retirement, but I never expected it would be because only I could write the story that landed in my lap, in one piece, in 2000 – and which I have been working on since then.
I have always felt it was vouchsafed to me.
I cannot imagine the Pride’s Children trilogy, of which two volumes are published, being written by anyone but me – and hope I will finish it. It has been demanding attention for twenty-three years now; I don’t think it realized that the very experience which makes it solely mine is ALSO what would make it so incredibly slow to produce.
We’re getting there. I wouldn’t change a thing.
A gift story. There’s something extra special about that.
Thank you Barbara for your insightful words of wisdom. Looking back I think I’ve always been writing my particular brand of story that comes from my heart and unique life experience and perspective. And sometimes fretting over the friction I feel when it rubs up against others that are different. Your essay helps me to understand that is its value. I do wonder though in today’s noisy world about how it will find the right readers. Am I packaging it and putting it out in such a way that it will find them? This part I find frustrating. I’d love to hear all those memorable lessons your journalism professor taught you about being a professional writer.
It is sometimes difficult to find our own particular audience, for sure. My mantra is one reader at a time, even if that seems slow and frustrating.
Maybe I should write an essay about what Mr. Pavlick taught me.
Too often I find myself regretting that I didn’t get serious about writing years ago, but your post reminds me that part of what I have to share, “what is mine to do,” comes from being a late bloomer.
Thank you for your words!
As powerful as when you spoke Sunday at lunch at the Pikes Peak Writers’ Conference. It was a delight to meet you, to attend your First 100 Pages session, and to hear your reminder to lean in to those stories only we can tell.
What a wonderful question, Barbara! I wrote it down and placed it on my desk. I think it will not only accompany me today but also in the future. Thank you!
I am currently reading The Lost Recipe for Happiness, as I’ve just discovered your books, and here I am reading your post. Coincidence? I think not. We authors need these reminders and encouragement. Thank you.