Can you spot the imposter in the picture? Couldn't pass up a chance to include a guinea pig in my post!

My daughter recently got an internship with a big NYC literary agency. It is exactly the internship and the kind of job she wants and she is thrilled. Busy, stressed, but thrilled.

It’s all “virtual” in that she still lives in her apartment near the LSU campus and is taking classes, but she works two or three days for the agency, reading manuscripts they send her and stuff like that. All online.

Last week, she had a conference call for something they call “Intern Academy.” It’s apparently a chance for the interns to ask questions about the publishing industry and books and such.

She was totally freaked out by this because, as she said, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I told her she’s an intern and by definition she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Plus, I said, “I don’t think anyone in any kind of creative, ‘thinking’ job thinks they know what they’re doing.”

I know several multi-published authors who finish a book and are convinced that’s the last one they will ever write. I worked as a Kelly girl for years and I often DIDN’T know what I was doing because it was my first day on the job or sometimes my only day in that office and the training was little to none. But there were other times when I worked some place for months and still often felt like I was just making it up as I went along.

I was in the Army for two years and always felt like I wasn’t REALLY in because I was in the Intelligence and Security Command and after basic training, it wasn’t really very military, and I was terrified someone would realize that I wasn’t really a soldier. To this day, I’m a little chagrined to stand up on Veterans’ Day with all the guys who served in war. I was in during “peace time,” if you can call the Cold War that, and don’t feel worthy to stand with people who literally risked their lives for the country, but that’s a different story.

The point is that EVERYONE, I think, who is doing “skilled” work, sometimes feels like an imposter.

Maybe if you are a dog walker or mow lawns or flip burgers for a living you might not feel that way about your job, but you might feel it about something else.

None of us, I maintain, ever REALLY feels like a grown-up, and therefore, we never really feel like we know what we’re doing.

I know I don’t.

What do you think?

A few days ago, we were all in the car coming home from church. This is a pretty rare thing. Not coming home from church. Or going to church, for that matter.

No, usually the whole family isn’t in the car together. Our daughter has her own car and her own apartment, so usually, she’s driven to church by herself or she leaves with her grandparents because we’re all going to end up there anyway and we just need to go home and change.

This day was unusual. We were having company at the time the rest of the family usually goes to church so we went early.

Anyway, as we were driving home, Noah said that some of the kids in his class at school asked him if he was Italian.

This seems to me, based on my admittedly limited experience, a standard Catholic school question. My daughter was asked if she was Irish or Italian. (Neither – she’s Scandinavian. We’re converts so we don’t fit the “cradle Catholic ethnic mold.”)

So, he asked us what to say when he’s asked that question.

Well, clearly he’s black, but it is an interesting question and not an easy one as he was adopted by us when he was 8 weeks old. He has no memory of his “other family” nor any memories of any “heritage” before ours.

Now, in a diverse environment like his school, which is mostly white but with a decent showing of other races, it should be clear that he’s not Italian or Irish or whatever, but he’s in third grade and how aware are kids at this age?

I said, “Sweetie, your mom is half Scandinavian. Your dad is half Scandinavian, and your sister is half Scandinavian. If you want to tell people you’re Scandinavian, I’m totally okay with that.”

What do you think?

I’m a writer. Sure, it’s been seven years since I had anything published, but I have one novel out looking for a place to live (publisher), and I’m currently writing another one. There are half a dozen more in my head.

When my first book came out years ago, my mother was proud but also amazed. She said, “Where did you get your creativity? I’m not creative.”

This from the woman who made much of my clothing and that of my sister when we were growing up. Having a son of my own now, I’m not sure Mom sewed much for my brother. It’s hard to find patterns for boys.

Anyway, after I got married, Mom took up quilting and found her medium! She made quilts, jackets, tote bags, and placemats and table runners galore. She made quilts when there was no one to give them to. She made them because she loved it.

She died two years ago and I inherited all of her sewing stuff because my sister-in-law didn’t want it. In fact, she tried to get me to take HER sewing machine, too, but as much as I love to sew, a girl can only use so many machines.

I found a baby quilt top Mom had finished. It only needs batting, backing, quilting and binding to be done, so I’m doing that. There are several more tops and parts of tops I’ll be working on, too.

All of this got me to thinking about creativity. Mom didn’t think she was creative because she didn’t think of herself as an artist.

What is an artist? Is it merely someone who paints masterpieces that hang in galleries, or is it someone who sews her daughter a skating costume to wear to the roller skating rink every Saturday?

I know lots of writers and nearly all of them engage in some other form of “art work.” Many paint, but others do needlework or garden or create scrapbooks and other paper crafts.

Creativity, I propose, is a way of thinking. An outside the box way of thinking. A way of thinking that says, “Just because we’ve always done it this way might mean it’s time to do it another way.”

I think if you make your child a lunch for school and you decide not to put in a sandwich because you know he won’t eat it, even though that’s what a school lunch is supposed to be, that’s creative.

If you decide to take a vacation to a campground in Canada when everyone else is going to Disney, that’s creative.

Sometimes just taking a different route to work or school because it might be fun is a creative thing too.

Be creative today!