What to Say When Asked if You Are a Writer
Have you ever been asked if you are a writer? There are very few, if any, readers of this blog who do not write.
You may not think of yourself as the next Hemingway, nor would you introduce yourself by saying “I am a writer” when the most creative thing you have written lately is a letter to your grandchild.
My question to you is why not claim that you are a writer?
We all begin to write as preschoolers tracing letters on strangely lined yellow paper, and grow up to write greeting cards, letters (or emails), grocery lists, and book reports.
As we get older the content changes but not the physical act of pushing a pen (or tapping a keyboard).
No longer writing essays and book reports for a teacher we may find ourselves writing letters of application to college or a job.
In the workplace, I wrote sermons, eulogies, and condolences.
I expect your work calls on your writing skills also…reports if you are in business, notes in charts if you are in the medical field.
Letters to friends and family and keeping a diary are a few more places that count as writing.
If you write, you ARE a writer.
What do you write?
So the question is not “Are you a writer?” but what is it that you write – or don’t write – because you don’t think you can?
I find myself in my 8th decade sitting at a desk and tapping a keyboard as if I knew what I am doing.
Some of it is creative. Much of it is pedestrian.
Occasionally I rant.
And my deepest hope is that I may inspire someone else who has never tried scribbling with words to discover an inner artist there.
We are taught in school to ‘think’ and to follow rules—whatever that means!
Capitals and commas in the right place. The rule about eliminating passive voice always struck me as an odd rule.
I have an inner voice that is anything but passive! Who am I trying to protect by not using that inner voice?!
My inner critic shouts at me with so much energy that I wonder if I am passive in writing to defend my trembling pen.
It seems this inner critic’s goal is to convince me that I am not really a writer.
Things that keep us from discovering
our gift for writing
When I spend time looking for the best words and phrases, avoiding redundancy, and checking my punctuation I don’t write much at all.
For years I let others do the writing while I read.
I find it hard to believe that Steven King or Maya Angelou ever wrote drek. They are too skilled with words.
They are the real writers.
Nonsense!
They are good writers. They are well-paid writers. What makes them different?
They do what I have not been willing to do.
To write every day.
To write tons of ‘shitty first drafts’ as Ann Lamott would call them, to unearth one great poem.
To plumb the horrors of their pasts to create masterpieces of story that change lives.
They, and all successful writers, write bravely, consistently, and daily.
I, on the other hand, write with fear of being found out as a fraud, using my pen sporadically as the spirit moves and I am careful not to let my life’s pain spill on the page.
If I am not ready to look at it, why would anyone else?
So I didn’t begin with writing horror. Not ready to go there.
And I have been put off by all the ‘rules’ of writing poems.
A poem sometimes pops out when I least expect it to. “When I Die” was such a poem.
Truthfully my computer is filling up with poems that have arisen, not out of my linear-thinking brain, but out of a trembling heart when I feel brave enough to listen to it.
What is not needed to call yourself a writer
What are some of the things I learned once I realized that to be a writer doesn’t mean I have to be an author?
- I don’t have to own an ISBN number.
- I don’t have to let anyone read my writing.
- I don’t have to make money writing.
- I don’t have to win awards for writing.
- I don’t have to write ‘A’ work. If someone wants to judge my writing, that is up to them.
I learned that if I write, then I am a writer.
If YOU write, then you are a writer.
Period.
Consistency is the bugaboo.
Striving for consistency rather than brilliance is the secret.
If I am brilliant but only exercise that once or twice a year, there is no benefit…to me or to the world.
But if in my ordinariness I write every day, sometimes there are little pearls of wisdom that roll out between all the drek.
I began consistently writing a few years back by committing to writing my granddaughters every Friday.
For an entire year, I shared stories I would be sharing if I still had a wood stove to sit by, to tell the tales that have shaped my life.
Oh, how times have changed!
Consistency and creativity have improved with a program I found recently called “750words.com” a fun accountability app that motivates me to show up each day.
Often I write gobbledygook – nonsense words devoid of punctuation or meaning. (I suspect you have read a certain measure of that here on this blog.)
Using this tool opens a funnel, though, to a different part of my brain, allowing an initial dump of detritus behind which are hidden the pearls that I seek.
If you struggle with showing up to write every day you may want to try this app [Click Here] and see how long a writing streak you can conquer.
Today I call myself a writer
because I write.
Even when my plate is full with all the responsibilities of being a good family member, friend and citizen, I journal what I have done, how I feel about the day, my gratitudes for the last 24 hours, and my hopes and dreams for tomorrow.
I have used cheap notebooks as well as fancy leather-bound volumes.
My all-time favorite tool is Day One — an app in which I can keep multiple digital journals, as well as photos and links to ideas that inspired me on any given day.
I especially like the search function when I can’t remember what day I put a dent in the car or brought home the new kitten. It’s all there and I can find it.
If you struggle with getting started or being consistent, I invite you to join TheReflectiveCollective, an inconsistent coalition of writers who post perhaps a sentence a day in response to the daily prompt that is given. It’s a beginning.
