A Tale of Two (Unpaid) Careers

 I don't remember exactly when I started to dream of becoming a writer.  I was young though.  Certainly by the time I was thirteen or fourteen I had some airy dreams of my name being as recognized as Stephen King or Danielle Steel (my favorite writers at that age, which is disturbing to me now). In any case, I recognized it as a highly unlikely dream (like my even younger self's plan to become the first female major league baseball player).  But it was always there, in the back of my mind.  It was the reason I started college as an English major-- I had some vague plan to teach English and write novels on the side.  Luckily, I ditched that plan right away.  I would have been miserable as an English major.  Urban planning was a much better fit.  But the writing bug didn't go away with a change of major.  I had started I-don't-even-know-how-many stories as a teenager, but in college I actually finished my first short story and started working on the novel that eventually became The Legend of Sirra Bruche.  I still dreamed of being a writer, but figured I'd have a day job that actually paid the bills.

Now go back to thirteen-year-old Heidi and switch gears.  In junior high, I spent a ridiculous amount of time wrestling with my hair and makeup.  You know how it is in junior high-- how you look, what you wear, and even what brands you wear are very important (this was far more true in Southern California where I grew up than it is for my kids now).  What I learned through hours of tears and frustration was that I have NO talent for hair styling.  Not at all.  It didn't help that my hair was plainly psycho, unable to decide if it was curly or straight, frizzy or smooth, blond or brown.  The one thing my hair committed to with ultimate fanaticism was thickness.  I had so much hair that the term "volumizing" on a shampoo bottle was enough to make me shudder.  I didn't want volume!  Where was the "slimming" shampoo?  I had a stylist once "thin" my hair (supposedly) and all it did was make it look even more insane.  So when friends talked about going to cosmetology school I dismissed that possibility out of hand.  That was a career I was plainly unsuited for (styling hair while making small talk with strangers?  Yikes!).  The only hair thing I ever became skilled at was french braiding my own hair (something I mastered after hours upon hours of effort, mostly so I could keep my hair out of my face).

I didn't know that eventually both of these things-- writing and braiding-- would consume so many hours of my week they would practically become part-time jobs.  Unpaid jobs, mind you.  Oh, I am officially a writer.  I have six published novels, and yes, I receive royalties on them, but at the current rate, I may earn enough in royalties to eventually cover the expenses of editing and formatting and the covers in about fifteen years.  Maybe.  All the writing I do right now earns me zilch.  (Quick writer update.  I have two rough novels in the drawer and a third about 75% finished of a new fantasy series.  But it may be quite awhile before I publish any of them.)  So why waste so much time doing it?  I can't help it.  I have to write.  It builds in me and I grow unhappy and desperate.  But it's definitely not bringing in a paycheck.

And the braiding?  I currently spend about six to eight hours a week (occasionally much longer) braiding hair.  It is a never ending cycle of maintaining the girls' hair.  B's hair is so thick and grows so fast that by the time I make it through her whole head it's time to start over again.  The hair growth at her scalp gets matted when it gets too long.  S's hair doesn't grow quite as fast but she has much finer hair than B and her braids don't stay as well, so we are constantly fixing it.  Oddly enough, no one wants to pay me for braiding my own kids' hair!

I wonder what other unpaid careers lie in my future.  Please, please, let anything involving phone calls not be one of them!!!  I would rather eat snails.  Or braid hair for forty hours a week.  Or write all day with no breaks. Or run for public office--waaaait.  Never mind.  That would be worse!