On being a writer

I read advice once, a long time ago, that suggested if you want to be a writer, you should stop telling people, "I want to be a writer," and start declaring to people, "I'm a writer," as a statement of verifiable truth. I am a writer. Even if, in fact, you hadn't actually written anything yet (or, perhaps more specifically, not written anything you could say was published somewhere) (or not anything worth reading). I think the idea behind the advice was this concept of thinking your way into being what you wanted to be. If you identify yourself to be   (fill-in-the-blank)  , then you will start acting like you are _______, and eventually you will then be _________.

This was terrible advice, by the way. Frankly, I don't believe one can think their way into acting. To wit: For years, I could actually picture myself as one of those people who ate healthy foods and exercised regularly and looked slim and trim and svelte and fit. I mean, I could actually envision myself skinny like that, and what my life would look like if that's what I did and if that was how I acted. Amazingly, however, that thinking didn't translate into action. I don't know. Maybe that kind of mind game works for others, but it definitely did not work for me. Your mileage may vary, as they say.

But I digress.

Another problem with the "Call yourself a writer and make it so" advice is that it was definitely offered up before the age of the internet. These days, everyone considers themselves to be a writer and can claim that their work is published... on their blog site, anyway.

I don't want to examine too closely the reason why this person, me -- the gal who started writing stories when she was old enough to bang out words on a typewriter (and, oh, my... you should see those stories I wrote when I was seven and eight and nine years old; they are hiLARious) -- didn't, in fact, become a writer. Or even a very good (let alone consistent) blogger. But, for whatever reason, I gave up storytelling for news writing in college, and then gave up news writing for press release writing when I couldn't find a job in journalism, and then gave up press release writing for lesson plan writing when I started to homeschool, and, well... here I am.

And, yeah, I know. Plenty of folks hold day jobs and/or even homeschool a quiverfull of kids and still find time to blog and write and create amazing recipes and post elaborate pictures of the individual ingredients along with the finished dish and then end up with a book deal. But we can't all be the Pioneer Woman.

Heaping further coals of discouragement on my head was this recent article: Why You Shoudn't Be a Writer. It was a pretty harsh reality check, but I realized the author probably had some pretty good points. Am I really as good as I think I am? No, definitely not. Am I compelled to write; do I feel as though I will burst if I can't write every day? Uh... that's a negative, Ghost Rider. (Or should that be Ghost Writer? Bwahahaha! Get it?) (*sigh.) (This is why I shouldn't write.)

In any case, this whole post was spawned by the fact that I have an idea for another post churning in my brain, but my attempts to "put it on (virtual) paper" have proved futile thus far, and it makes me question whether I really have that.... je ne sais quoi it takes to be a writer. In fact, this post is actually the perfect example of the problem I have with the other post, and it's not writer's block; just the opposite: I know what I want to say, but it's taking too long to get to the point, and, in fact, I have more than one point I want to make, and they are related... and yet they aren't, and trying to bring the two stories I'm sharing back together so the reader can see the relationship between them and how (in my mind) it all ties together... and, more importantly, the significance of it all... well, it's challenging.

And then, I wrestle with yet another aspect: Who cares? My mom and my sister and my husband and maybe a couple close friends (if they have time) read this blog, and that's about it, so why am I worrying about it so much?

Because I want them to think what I want to think of myself: 

Boy, that girl can write.