Dealing with Dragons

I’m rereading Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede in audiobook form. (I have all of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles sitting next to me right now in hardback, but the library had the audiobooks and I’d never heard them before, so there you go.) I first read these books when I was 12 and I LOVED them. I was crazy about them. For anyone who hasn’t read them, the first book, Dealing with Dragons, is about a princess named Cimorene who doesn’t want to be a proper princess, and instead of learning embroidery and other princess-like skills, she learns how to cook, how to fence, how to do magic, and how to read Latin. She doesn’t get to learn anything very long before her parents find out and put a stop to it, so she ends up kind of a dabbler in “useless” skills. Then when she’s 16 her parents decide to marry her off to a prince she can’t stand, and she ends up running away and becoming a dragon’s princess who doesn’t want to be rescued.

And best of all, as a dragon’s princess, all her “useless” skills become very important.

This book influenced me a lot as a kid. Listening to it now, I remember reading these sentences for the first time, and how much I learned from all of them (about life, about storytelling–it was just packed full of INFO I hadn’t learned yet at the age of 12). And I got to meet the author at the library! Which was awesome.

I’m reading this book now and thinking, “Huh, is this book why I wanted to learn Latin so much?” Because Cimorene knows Latin and ends up using it to organize the dragon’s library. Because even though knowing Latin is a very useless skill for a regular princess, it turns out it’s very useful as a dragon’s princess. And I don’t think it’s what made me interested in Latin, because I’m pretty sure I was already fascinated with it–or at least with the idea of it, because of course I didn’t know ANY Latin at 12–though I’m sure the book did increase my interest. But I think this book is the reason I’ve never given up learning things I liked that other people thought were useless.

And boy do I learn a lot of useless things! In fact, all the things I’m good at are “useless.” Latin is useless–ask anyone who’s never studied it. Try telling a business major you chose Latin and, no, you don’t have any concrete plans for what you’re going to do with it, and they get this look. They get this look, kind of a smile that slips over their faces, that says they’re SO glad they made the right choice. Because I might have picked something that made me happy, but they picked something that’s going to make them money instead, and in that moment they feel validated and are certain they have their priorities straight. (To be fair, not all business majors are like that, and there are plenty of other majors who give you that look, too–business was just my example.)

But I have always firmly believed in my heart that there will be the equivalent of a dragon’s library to sort out someday, and then having learned the things I loved will make all the difference.

And speaking of useless things I’ve learned, we can’t forget writing. Because until the day I was published, if I told someone I was a writer, they also gave me the look. Or they gave me a confused look, like they just couldn’t even fathom what I was saying, glanced away for a moment, and then came back changing the subject, as if I’d never said anything about being a writer at all. O__o Or they would tell me they had thought about being a writer for a while, but ultimately decided there was no money in it and quit. They have a point, but there’s also a lot of happiness and fulfillment in it. (And, okay, a lot of heartbreak and angst and unhappiness, but that’s what makes the successes so ridiculously satisfying.) And, for the record, writing is the only job I’ve ever had that pays the bills, unsteady as it may be. That’s not true for everyone, and some people have, you know, real careers instead of only working the minimum wage gigs where working full time barely keeps them surviving, and the money they make at writing doesn’t compare to their jobs anyway.

But my point is, I’ve always chosen to learn things that make me happy, instead of what other people think I should be learning or doing or whatever. And I think that’s a very good thing, and I think this book, Dealing with Dragons, has had a lot to do with that.