(This is sort of loosely inspired by this really great article by Tawni O’Dell, about being proud of who you really are (as a writer, especially). Please read it!)

I was never cut out to be valedictorian. Too much work. I almost made the top ten, but didn’t. I was having too much fun. #28 in a class of 400-something. I could just never get it together enough to really buckle down the way I needed to, to make those top grades every single time. You know, those kids who never got anything less than straight A’s? Well, I got a couple B’s. I surely did. I was busy falling in love (a good few times…), breaking up, making friends, having jobs, quitting jobs, being a teenager.

My college experience was much the same. I did well. But I didn’t quite make the grades I needed to get my magna cum laude cords. I was so jealous of everyone who had them. I got my honors cords instead, had just “cum laude” listed after my name in the program. Again, I was too busy… working two jobs to put myself through school, falling out of love, falling in love with my honey, making friends, losing friends, getting married, watching people die, changing my major a good dozen times.

Some day, when I have to write an author’s bio, I want to remember to say that I didn’t get my MFA because I didn’t want one. I got married and pregnant instead, and that was what I wanted. I know they’re going to think of me as a lesser writer because of it, and they’re welcome to go fuck themselves while they’re at it. It’s just a point I want to remember. I’m not very good at remembering these things in the moment. I’m a sensitive type, in the moment – more likely to ball up and cry.

I suspect the rest of my career, my life’s ambitions, my successes will follow that pattern. #28 in a class of 400-something. Almost the smartest, but not. Almost the best, but not. Almost popular, but not. Almost successful, but not.

Obviously those things aren’t the most important to me. I made decisions along the way that demonstrated the fact that I didn’t really want to be all of those things, but instead, wanted to be a little bit of them. I wanted to be close to them, but not. It left me the space to live a life, have experiences, make the connections that inspire all these stories I’m able to write.

I remember being so hard on my little eighteen year-old self, for not making that top ten group. And as a ripple-effect, not getting into the college I wanted. Not getting the scholarships I wanted. I felt like such a failure. How was I supposed to know I was doing everything exactly right? How was I supposed to know, that looking back on it from here, I wouldn’t change a damn thing?

My book is about a lot of things. On the very first page of my notebook, I have a list of all the things my novel is about. Some of them are vague and abstract (fragility and unexpected strength?), and some are less vague (a young marriage rooted in friendship?). It’s also a story about some birds. Really, it is. But nowhere on my list is the [big topical subject, or two] that happens to also come up in the book. It isn’t a story about “that” at all.

Or at least I hope it isn’t.

For a while, I was worried it would end up being “one of those kind of books” about [insert your favorite big topical subject matter here]. Not that there’s anything wrong with “those kind of books”. People love them. They sell well. They make people think and they make people talk, and the author gets invited to morning shows and Oprah to talk about [big topical subjects]. Jodi Picoult writes “those kind of books”, and I’ve read some of them before, and they’re interesting. You can tell when she talks about them that they’re “those kind of books”, because when she talks about them, she talks about the [big topical subject] they’re about. But I don’t think I’ll ever want to talk on a morning show, and that’s not the kind of book I want to write either.

The Cider House Rules is a good example (one of my favorite books ever!). If any book could be tagged as being “about abortion” I think that would be it. But in truth, it’s not about abortion at all. It’s about people, and what a person is entitled to do with his life, and what’s right or not right, what’s fair or not fair. It’s about love, and family, and sacrifice, and standing up for what you believe in. But no, it’s not really about abortion. Or I’d say, if you think it’s just about abortion, then you’re clearly not reading it deeply enough.

What is the difference then, and how do you make that difference stand out? I think one difference I see is in the characters. I imagine that when you sit down to write “one of those kind of books”, you start with an idea, a story about [big topical subject], and then you insert some characters.

Then the stories I like to write, and love to read, are ones where the story is so organic to these particular characters that no other characters could possibly take their place, because the story just wouldn’t work anymore. The story is the characters. Maybe that’s the difference? I love stories about people, not stories about [big topical subjects]. Though often people will run into these big topical subjects in their lives. It’s kind of unavoidable sometimes.

So I know what I want my book to be, and what I don’t want it to be. And I think I have one point to start with. Does anyone else see other differences, between “those kind of books” and the other kind, which somehow manage to be about much more than you’ll find at the surface level?