The secret to happiness: Abuse, poverty, ruined shoes

Let’s face it. I am not the best writer in the world.

We already know that, you’re saying to yourself. What’s your point?

Well, here it is, smarty pants: I’ve been successful when more talented people have not simply because I wanted it more desperately. I tried to not be a writer, to be a real person with a job that had regular hours and actually paid decently.

Nope. Didn’t work. I was always unhappy. On the outside, I looked like I had it all under control. Well, maybe except my weight. That was seldom under control and even when it was, I still felt fat. Oh, and my love life. I’ve never stopped mucking that one up.

But everything else seemed cool. People admired me. But I was miserable. Because I wasn’t doing what I loved: writing for a living. I was too scared to fail. I was terrified that if I really tried my hardest to do the one thing I loved, I would turn out to be really bad at it, and then I would have nothing, not even hopes and dreams.

But here’s the interesting part: I finally just had a small nervous breakdown. I quit my job and lay on my couch, smoking cigarettes (yes, I did that back then), drinking box wine and watching “I Love Lucy” reruns on TV.

I felt like I had failed at everything I’d ever tried, which wasn’t true, but I had failed at accomplishing the one thing in the world I really wanted to do: be a professional writer.

This was ridiculous, of course, because I hadn’t failed. I had never even tried. Fear held me back.

But here’s the thing: There are only so many reruns of “I Love Lucy.” Eventually, I had to get off the couch, even if only to go to the store for another pack of cigarettes.

And somewhere on the way to the store, I made a resolution: By the end of the year, I would be making my living with my words, even if it was just writing copy for the Sears catalog.

I started writing for free, for any publication that would print my words. Eventually, I started getting paid. Not enough to live on, you understand. But it was real, actual money paid by someone who thought my words were worth it.

I went to work at a national advertising agency. As a secretary. Because at least I was near people who were getting paid for writing. I took classes on my own time, and eventually they hired me as a copywriter.

And I hated it. I didn’t hate the writing part, just the part about writing advertising. It just wasn’t me. But, hey. I was a writer.

I kept on swinging and striking out, and swinging again, because I just couldn’t do anything else. Even when I was so poor I had to buy my clothes at thrift shops and live on an unending diet of frozen burritos, I was happy. Because I was following my passion, or my bliss, as people say.

My first job at a tiny newspaper, I had to write 12 stories a week and I worked for a screamer. A guy who screamed at us until the veins popped out on his neck and his face turned red.

Even though he scared me, he was also a good journalist, and he would sit with me at night and show me what I was doing wrong on my stories, which was pretty much everything. Night after night, he would yell at me for being stupid. And I would go in the bathroom and cry, and then I would tell myself, “This isn’t brain surgery. You can learn this.” And I would go back out and let him teach me.

And, guess what? After a while, I became a good, perfectly serviceable writer and reporter.

Car drove into a swimming pool? I’m on it. Grumpy mayor won’t stop smoking despite the new ban at City Hall? I’m on it. Wildfire burns down 60 houses? I’m on it, although do I have to ruin my new blue suede shoes tromping around the hillsides? Apparently, yes.

I learned that the difference between the writers who made it out of that crummy newsroom into better jobs and those who didn’t was whether or not you let someone teach you. Those who wouldn’t let anyone touch their golden prose never got better.

It’s painful and humiliating to have someone tear apart your carefully crafted story and show you what you did wrong. And then make you do it better. But that’s how you learn.

I’ve found over the years that most things you love involve pain. Just take an aspirin and get on with it. Or, as Nike says, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Some of you reading this are probably better writers than I am right now. But the difference is that I just couldn’t be happy doing anything else.

Thank you for making me happy by reading.