A Life of Discards

 Thanks, Peggy, for hosting me today, and not discarding me now that I'm a LadyKiller alum and not a voting member.

If I were to list all my discarded ideas, this would be the longest blog of my extensive blog career.

But, then, "discarded" may too sophisticated and charitable a word to apply to the ideas I've let slip through my life unnurtured. The word implies that a choice was made, as if I'd examined the idea carefully and decided that it wasn't worthy of my attention, or that I'd thoughtfully put it aside for a while with a promise to revisit.

More accurately, what I've done is simply let ideas go, by default, by not following through with them. I have a history of taking an idea just so far and then dropping it in favor of another, shinier idea, abandoning it, like an unfit mother who's attention is attracted by another kid across the playground.

In short, I've hardly ever met an idea I didn't like, play with, and ultimately cast aside when the going got rough, i.e., when it started to involve a lot of work, a large measure of stick-to-it-iveness, and the confidence that the investment would be worth the effort.

In this way, I've discarded my way through life. I've always been that way. If social workers and child psychologists were paying as much attention when I was a kid (if there even were social workers and child psychologists when I was a kid), I'd have been riddled with drugs and shunted off to Focus Therapy three times a week. I'd have been forced to finish that A, B, C book, instead of stopping at P once I realized there were 10 more letters to go; to finish that Lego bridge (kidding; there were no Legos then, any more that there were child development specialists.)

I often think how different my life would have been if I'd chosen to be a finisher, an expert in something. Just a small corner of the universe where I would know more than anyone else.

At one time, my husband knew more than anyone in the world about video tape, including the technical aspects and the behind-the-scenes business, all the way to the FCC. Imagine digging that deeply into a one-half-inch phenomenon like video tape! He was in great demand for his expertise.

Even in retirement, he's still that way—focused, as engineers are wont to be. (Lucky me when there's a problem in my home office or entertainment center!) When VHS tapes went to the Smithsonian, he chose a new field, and can hold his own with all the geeky 12-year-olds out there when many of his peers have moved on to golf and only golf. (Not that there's anything wrong with golf.)

I admire experts, but it's too late for me.    

Instead, I write my characters as experts. Sure, Professor Sophie Knowles has a hobby or two, but she's heavy into her teaching and research and knows a lot more about differential equations than I ever did. She's not about to write a novel or go on a blog tour or take a cartooning class as I've done.

My first protagonist, Gloria Lamerino, retired physicist, was even more of a specialist, never reading outside her field, paying no attention to the swirl of ideas around her in Berkeley during its Kumbaya days.

Probably the protagonist who's most like me is Gerry Porter of the Miniature Mysteries. She loves her hobby of building dollhouses and making mini scenes, but she's content to use kits and found objects—unlike her friends and fellow crafters who make tiny replicas of furniture and objects of art that are museum quality, "from scratch."   

I take my refuge in a quote from Carl Sagan: If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Since there's no time for that, I might as well use the pie mix and move on to another project.

Am I the only one who's left a trail of discards with many hats, careers, names, hobbies, and projects that died of neglect?

 

 
Camille Minichino's latest release is "A Function of Murder," writing as Ada Madison, a Professor Sophie Knowles Mystery from Berkley Prime Crime.

Comments

[Lynette K.]

I have a whole bag of unfinished knitting projects. At least I have given up starting new ones.

[camille minichino]

Hi Lynette; nice to see you here! I let my knitting projects go for so long that if I do take one up again, there's a line in the finished project between the old and the new rows. Do you have a way around that?

[rita lakin]

Dear "Honorable," - yet another new name for the Camille of Many Aliases. I shall address you, like so, from now on.

I,too, have file drawers filled with cast-off ideas. In my case I was sure I'd use them some day. Wrong.
As for knitting, I have in a plastic bag in the corner of a closet, a sweater which is 3/4 finished. Ir will never see the light of day. Just as well. All the others I knit never fit.

Loved your guest blog, Lady Honorable. Upward and onward to many, many, many new projects. Discarded or not.

[Susan Shea]

Of course you're not the only one who's abandoned mountains of material. You're merely the one who can admit with grace and humor, rather than misery and shame!

[camille minichino]

Thanks Rita and Susan for stopping by for a discard!

Remember I'm keeping LK bookmarked, so you won't be able to get away from me.

[Mysti Berry]

You sound JUST LIKE ME! I'm a classic starter-of-things, and endlessly distracted by the next Bright Shiny thing too :)

But I do think you know so much about people, and what's important in life. I just can't think of you as a diletante.

I never kept a day job longer than 28 months (until the current gig, which is running on 9 years now!), though I did stick with tech writing after age 30. Mostly because it kept changing!

You're an expert friend, that's for sure. Takes a lifetime to get that skill right!

[camille minichino]

Wow, 9 years -- that's a lifetime in job years, Mysti. I was at a very large lab for more than 12, BUT during that time I had 9 different extensions, and it wasn't the telephone company's fault. I was lucky in that there were so many things to do in that one place, I could build up a little "tenure" while looking stable on my resume.

[Ann]

Knitting projects... If I can't crochet it with big fat crochet needles (thus finishing a scarf in spiffy-quick time), it doesn't get done. :-} Lots of two- or three-inch long scraps on knitting needles, that remain just that. Scraps. Maybe I could make a patchwork scarf from them?

[Margaret Lucke]

I'm betting that many of your supposedly discarded ideas were in fact not tossed out. Rather, you've repurposed them for use in new projects. This is going on the theory that each book or project builds on the foundation of what we've done and learned before. And what a rich set of experiences you have to draw on!

Please don't discard The LadyKillers, Camille. Come back often!

[camille minichino]

Very good point, Peggy. Nothing we think or learn is truly lost -- I think there's something about conservation of energy in the universe . . .?

Thanks again for giving me your spot!

[camille minichino]

Ann, I made an afghan once, out of squares and snippets of unfinished knitting. If you do it right, some people will think you planned it!

I wonder if we can write a short story or novel that way? hmmm.

[Priscilla]

I was never tempermentally suited to knowing a lot about one thing. I always wanted to know how everything fit together so adored survey courses and got twitchy with the very specific. One of the many reasons I switched from majoring in English to World Literature "back in the day"... As always,Camille, thank you for your insights. I always enjoy.