A Writer, I Am
By Keiti | February 21, 2008
A recent post by a new online friend (and coincidentally a co-author over at The Grammar Police), made me give some thought to my own struggle with identifying myself as a writer and what I need, and very rarely ask for, as a writer.
I used to think that I could never refer to myself as a writer unless I was actually getting paid. I would cringe whenever I would refer to myself as a writer to another person because, much of the time, the next question would be, “Oh? What have you published?”
A question which still, to this day, only has one answer: Nothing.
I don’t consider posting my own work online as being published. I’m proud of my work, don’t get me wrong, but I still harbor the voice of discontent - the niggle in the back of my mind that my writing isn’t eloquent enough, or visually descriptive enough, or good enough - that it’s overall sub-par work and that no one will ever want to publish anything I write. (Which is a big part of why I’ve never been published - I haven’t attempted to put anything into print until Bethany and the Belfry Bat. So I am getting a bit more secure in my writing abilities, but I’m not all the way there, yet.)
And while I’m not the most brilliant writer who ever lived, I do realize I’m far too hard on myself. I think most writers are - there’s always that self-doubt, that striving for perfection that never comes.
But there’s also the insane need to write; to constantly create and play with words; to share the innermost parts of your soul, which always seem to end up in whatever you write because you simply can’t help it. It’s the catharsis of putting the proverbial pen to paper that seems to provide the fuel.
To put it in misfit terms, I write because I’d go even more insane if I didn’t.
And I know that I’m a writer, published or not, because it’s an inherent part of who I am.
There’s no compromise; I simply have to write.
Topics: writing |
February 28th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Keiti, a wise writing teacher once told me that the word “publish” is rooted in the word “public.” In other words, to publish means to make one’s work public. We can publish on-line or we can publish to family or friends or we can send work to entities like journals that take the next step to make our work public. It’s all publishing. This teacher took the idea of publishing yet another step to describe reading our work aloud to others as another form of publishing. When we write a poem or a story for a special event, be it in a card or for a toast, we are publishing. Thinking of publishing this way, changed how I perceived myself as a writer. Hope it does the same for you because you are most certainly a published writer.
ph
February 29th, 2008 at 12:27 am
I don’t disagree with any of that, and I appreciate your sharing it with me.
However…
It kind of doesn’t have the same validation as getting picked up by someone who can distribute your work for pay.
It doesn’t sting as much as it could have, though.
Onward and upward.