37

On the fragile timing of a creative life

I was 37 years old when I got my first publishing contract.

I’d been working at this for a decade when it arrived, a little out of the blue and also the result of relentless work and manifestation efforts.

Being a published writer had been my dream since childhood. Books were my favorite things, next to animals–which I didn’t get to have as a kid. So most of my time was spent on books and reading and eventually, dreaming of having my own stories in print to entertain and delight people, and to share my view of the world.

This dream guided my education, even when my parents told me it wasn’t realistic. When I was accepted into a Master’s program at Emerson College, it felt like I’d been accepted into a world of people with whom I could finally relate. I soaked up every minute of it, every experience, every bit of learning.

After grad school, I found my niche in the mystery world and threw myself into it. Ten years of writing, trying out ideas, going to conferences, meeting people, pitching agents, revising, doing the whole thing on repeat.

I loved it. I held out hope that my writing career would take hold if I just kept at it. In the meantime, I worked at jobs that involved writing and storytelling: Journalist, marketing, communications. I told many “real” stories while I waited for my turn to tell fictional ones.

Then the opportunity arrived. An agent wanted proposals. I wrote one. It sold. There was, surprisingly, little fanfare in the whole process, despite the decade-long leadup.

I was 37. My first published book hit bookshelves when I was 38. And yes, it was the start of a whole new career and life experience.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because Renee Good, another writer and poet, was 37 years old when she was murdered earlier this month. I didn’t know her, or her goals or dreams, but I read her words in a poem that was circulating after she was killed.

Her poem, On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs, won a prize from the Academy of American Poets–a phenomenal achievement.

Renee had a degree in English and studied creative writing. She was an artist of words. Someone who thought deeply and took the time to translate those thoughts into language. It was, like all of us writers, her way of making sense of a sometimes senseless world.

And she shared her words in the hopes that they could touch someone else, make them think, or feel, or meet them exactly where they were with some comfort.

Multiple articles written about her since her death reference her favorite activities, along with spending time with her kids and wife, as writing, reading or talking about writing.

Listen, there’s so much about our reality right now that I’m angry and devastated about. Some of it I can’t even find words for, even though words are my business.

But Renee Good? She IS so many of us. As a friend, partner, mother, daughter, sibling–and also, she’s every writer who had a dream of seeing her words in print. She’s every artist who brought a unique thought into the world that touched another person. She very likely had hopes for what her creative future might look like as she continued to experience life and turn that into poetry and art.

And now, that’s over.

We’ll never get to read the words she would’ve written this year, next year, a decade from now. We’ll never get to see the world from her unique point-of-view ever again, because her voice was silenced by a small, violent, angry man.

We all need to be outraged by this. As decent humans, and also as writers and artists.

I feel so incredibly sad for her, and I don’t know what to do with this grief except to keep picking up my pen. To keep going. To put words on the page even when the world feels unsafe and cruel and wrong.

Because if voices can be silenced this easily, then using ours matters more than ever.

Renee Good doesn’t get to write the next poem.

The rest of us still can. And that is our responsibility.

I don’t take my writing life lightly. Not the time it took to get here. Not the fact that I’m still here at all.

I never did, but now more than ever I recognize it for the privilege it is.

Renee Good should have had decades left to grow, to evolve, to surprise herself on the page. To write stories for her kids. To slip away to a coffee shop and scribble ideas that might turn into poems. To win more awards.

She won’t get that. So we need to keep writing in her honor. And we need to be loud about it.