I am always looking for advice from well-established writers. One that I have heard over and over again is to stop using the phrase "aspiring writer." This is not an entirely new concept. During my college years in Nashville, I made some extra cash by acting in local commercials, country music videos (it WAS Nashville, after all), and independent and student films. I even had an agent to represent me in my last year there. It was fun, and I met a lot of people, many of whom were "aspiring" somethings--actors, directors, singers. And that phrase always bothered me. After all, if you were DOING, then you were no longer aspiring. The title itself seems to suggest someone who isn't doing anything at all.
Therefore, if you write, you are a writer. You may not be a professional writer or a bestselling writer or even a prolific or talented writer, but you are a writer nonetheless. If you just think about writing, talk about writing, then you are an aspiring writer.
And therein lies the rub, for me at least.
It is so easy to talk about myself as a writer, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult to actually find the time and the energy to do it. That should be evident from the frightening length of time that I have let go between blog entries. Like most writers I know, I have to deal with the real world. I love the idea of sitting at my desk at home for uninterrupted stretches of time so that I can really explore my ideas while the money flows in. But that is not most writer's reality. I have a full-time job, a house to clean, dinners to cook, grocery shopping and laundry to catch up on, and a husband and a ten-week-old son to take care of. Sure, the ideas are flowing, but I'm lucky if I can find the scrap paper to jot them down on (forget actually remembering where I put the piece of paper with the "brilliant" idea on it). When can I find the time to write? (Even now, I am writing this because I am at the mechanics getting my car fixed while the baby is with his grandmother for the afternoon).
I love to write--I just have to make it work. I write this now not as a complaint, but as a kind of manifesto, a reminder to myself that if I want to be a writer, I have to write. Period.
So, to all those other writers out there, I am fighting with you. Here is a reminder to not be aspiring writers. Aspire to make that novel a bestselling one. Aspire to be more talented, more prolific, more widely read. But don't aspire to write. Just write. Write when you get that free moment while waiting for your car's air-conditioner to be fixed. Write at four a.m. just after you put your son down after his feeding. Write in those stolen moments as well as the planned ones. Just write.
Because that is what writers do.
I hear ya, Sista. I no longer refer to myself as a writer or as becoming a writer. That imagined endpoint gets frustrating. It lacks clear benchmarks. Are you a writer because you write, even though you never finish works? Are you a writer because you finish works, even though you can't publish them through non-indie channels or make money from them? Are you a writer because you earn more than a year's wine allowance from them? Are you a writer because you publish works with small presses? Because you publish works through large presses? Because you have fans? Because people write unsolicited reviews? Where's the halfway point to becoming a writer? Where's the endpoint? When do I get to strut and say, "It's Mister Mo-Fo Writer. Awe yeah baby. Do-do-ti-too. It's Mister Mo-Fo Writer."
ReplyDeleteI prefer not to attribute my existence to my practices. Do I write? Yes. Do I teach? Yes. I also mentor, rescue animals, and skateboard, but I wouldn't put an "er" at the end of those practices. No one of them defines me.
That way, no one of them confines me. I don't have self-imposed or externally imposed deadlines that affect my identity.
I don't dig the stress. Don't stress me, Prettaaay Mama. Be cool.