Once Upon A Time...

And What Do You Do for a Living? by Suzanne M. Schweikert M.D. Copyright 2004 All Rights Reserved In this column, Dr. Suzanne Schweikert explores the impact of having read too many good books when a kid. Comments, thoughts, and personal experiences on kid lit and related topics are welcome. Email: Dr.Schweikert@WritersMonthly.com

Once Upon a Time… When no one cared what you did for a living...

I hate it when the first thing people ask me is what I do for a living. For me, it is the worst question in the world. Having rejected modern society’s notion of the ideal workweek, I have found that my answer is anything but simple. In fact, it often leaves me tongue-tied. How much is too much information? And why do people always have to ask?

The truth is, I can’t identify my working self in fewer than three sentences. It usually starts out something like this: "I’m a doctor, but I practice medicine part-time. This is because I’m also a public health researcher, which means I try to get grant money, but don’t actually get paid. And, oh yes, I’m a writer. And since I earned only $45 writing last year, I claimed a huge loss on my tax returns — copy paper, mileage to the grocery store, and what-not."

As you can see, my bumbling practically screams for follow up questions. They (the interrogator) will inevitably want to know where I practice medicine (three different places, all around town), what kind of research I do (anything that might prove worthwhile to human kind), and what kind of stuff I write (fiction, non-fiction, and, oh yes, this column).

At times, I’ve thought about just saying I’m a homemaker, as this might shut them up. And, for any writer who works at home, this is the honest truth. We do the dishes, and then write. We clean the fish tank, and then write. We pull weeds, and then write.

But on my snappy-answer days, I simply tell people that I’m "partially unemployed." While I see this as a good thing (my Working cup is half full), others get nervous at the mention of the "unemployed" word, and often stop prying.

Recently, however, I have noticed that I’m not the only one stammering and stuttering my way through the worst question in the world. Indeed, I am beginning to suspect that none of us are all that easily pigeon holed by our paying jobs, even if we manage to have only one of them.

Take my mailman, for instance. I know he’s a full-time mailman, but I also imagine he does other things, some of which might actually be more important to him than delivering my mail. He might write sci-fi books, make furniture in his garage, or organize food drives for his neighbors. He might have a handicapped child, or two older kids in college. And yet, he is first and foremost a mailman to me. That’s the way Americans tend to peg one another — with simple, suffocating labels.

Maybe you are wondering why all this is in a children's lit column? It's my round-about way of introducing, George, A Dog to Treasure, a new book out in March 2004, by Jerry McCarty.

However, I must confess that it was Jerry's biography, rather than the title, cover, or subject of his book, which really caught my eye. So, I will share it with you.

In his bio, Jerry describes his life’s path, moving through the ranks of, "drive-in car hop, laundry clerk, janitor, knife salesman, reporter, then editor, became an engineer, designed airplane parts, and structures for satellites and for the Saturn V moon rocket… and began a duller life of treasure hunting and writing." His laundry list intrigued me, because I got a feeling that, like myself, Jerry did not identify too closely with one particular line of work. It was the journey, rather than the title, that defined him.

But it is the following excerpt from Jerry’s biography, which I thought might give some insight into how writers can try to answer the world’s worst question, while making ourselves interesting to editors and agents. Given that people (and this includes agents and editors) have a natural curiosity about writers and what motivates them, your bio might be worth spending some creative energy on. Here is how Jerry’s begins:

After reading this, I was dying to know what kind of book the author would write. It turned out to be a heart-warming tale about a puppy named George, who is abandoned and rescued, and gets lost and found again. And, of course, I thought, if anyone could write convincingly on this subject, it would be Jerry McCarty.

Now, to get the negative over with, I must complain that George is a POD (Publish on Demand) product, and that the quality is both amateurish and, at times annoying. It has more spelling and punctuation errors than a bad second grade homework assignment, and the writing could have been tightened by some basic editing. On the other hand, George gives us a sweet and often hilarious dog’s-eye version of what it must feel like to wind up in a new home, where you don’t speak the language, and don’t know the rules.

Like Jerry himself, George is surprisingly non-bitter, given the circumstances of his life. And, despite the above criticism, I wonder what would have happened if George had been professionally edited. Throughout the story, the point of view switches seamlessly from a human’s to a dog’s, and the reader’s awareness of this shift is found only in our recognition of hearing two sides to the story. Would one of these voices, the dog’s perhaps, have been sacrificed in the making of a "marketable" book?

To give you a taste of the story, George must understand and accept his new family dynamic (complete with a jealous Chihuahua-sibling named Albert), and yet reconcile himself to the loss of his previous family. One never quite understands why he was sent away to the pound, a universal question for those who have been abandoned. But George also shows us how he re-channels his fear of abandonment into a love of adventure, a love which he shares with his human (and one imagines, Jerry-based) narrator.

In the end, George conveys universal truths about fear and love, without judging the underlying core emotions. It is an excellent book for a child with a new pet, as empathy for George would go a long way towards being responsible for an animal. It would also be good to read with children who have questions about adopted friends, or even for those of us who have ourselves been adopted. As with so many shared experiences, we humans can learn a lot from the way animals cope with adversity.

If you are considering publishing your book through a POD company, I highly advise that you take a look at Jerry’s book, to learn from his mistakes, as well as his successes. (*)

It is a route which Jerry himself does not highly recommend ("tell your readers to stay away from the POD companies"). In any case, George is a great example of what you get, if you take this route. And it’s worth a read, especially if you are an animal lover, or have ever felt lost in the world.

As Jerry says about the book, "It has a tinge of Jack London’s White Fang in it, and that was my favorite book when I was seven."

One can't help but imagine a young Jerry McCarty reading a tattered copy of White Fang in the back seat of his dad's sedan, while his father "goes house to house, selling" food-flavoring extracts.

(*) Read Jerry McCarty's essay My Adventures in Self-publishing

To purchase a copy of George, A Dog to Treasure go to Jerry McCarty’s website: www.treasured-dog.com.

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