A GENEROUS STATE OF MIND

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

I’ve always thought of myself as generous. The thing is, you won’t be referred to as a philanthropist on a starving writer’s budget.

Okay, so I’m definitely not starving and I don’t depending on my writer’s fees to fill the pantry. I am fortunate to have a husband who owns a business who employs me full time, but pays me more often than not in room and board. Not that I’m complaining. Room and board is a good thing. He also throws in the occasional luxuries and yep, he pays for reams of paper, computers, printers—all that tangible stuff it takes to be a writer. It works for us.

Still, I daydream of the time when I will be the major breadwinner of our family (this is my fantasy and in my fantasy that is how it would be.) I’d be generous, not quite to a fault, but generous nonetheless.

Talk about generous: HGTV is giving away another Dream Home. This one is in New Mexico in a space on the map where the crosswinds seem to invite everyone’s Muse to come and play. I’ve been to several writer’s conferences in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe area and have always come away with more ideas than when I arrived, so I like spending time in New Mexico.

If—wait, make that when I win the lavish adobe house, I plan to sponsor at least one writer’s retreat there before I have to sell the house to pay the taxes. It is a two million dollar prize package, so I imagine the taxes are slightly above what I currently earn as a writer including the occasional cash amount tacked onto my room and board privileges.

I’m not sure why I wasn’t born into a family who hands out trust funds; that would have made life so much easier for me to be generous.

Writing was once reserved more or less to those who were wealthy enough to have servants perform menial tasks while they spent time cranking out luxurious—and often lengthy—prose. Today, I still meet people who say they will write when they retire. As if writing still belongs to those with time on their hands and need something to do with themselves.

Not everyone can be a writer, but most people think they do have a Great American Novel hidden in the recesses of their minds and will get to it as soon as they have enough time to spare.
I don’t have spare time and I’m betting most of us don’t. I’m trying to be generous, but I am annoyed at people who do have a talent for something and are not using said talent while they wait around for spare time to magically appear.

Okay, so not everyone wants to be a writer, but everyone has some method of helping others. To do so would be generous. Except the individual usually gets back as much as he’s giving out.

Helping one person is like a row of dominoes stacked just close enough to topple all if one is nudged just a fraction. It can’t help but move forward. Generosity is contagious. Just like eating a Lay’s potato chip, it’s difficult to stop once you’ve shared your time, talents or money.

It would be wonderfully generous of HGTV to award me the Dream Home. Just think how generous I could be in return to other writers.

Whether I win this particular Dream Home or have to wait for another chance in next year’s version, I am mentally planning ahead to those writer’s retreats, but I’m thinking we just might need some reader’s points of view, too. It’d be generous of everyone to share. Who wants on the attendee’s list?