Thinking about identity: "Being" a Writer

[pegkerr]

This post has several roots. First, I have been feeling definite unease over the fact that, let's be honest, I just have not been working on the ice palace book. For months. I was pecking at it, and then my computer crashed last winter, and there was Christmas, and then taxes (which are STILL not done; don't blame me, blame Rob) and the end of school and karate and oh, all sorts of things. I let one thing after another crowd into my life and squeeze out the fiction writing.

I have talked in this journal about my fear that I have no more books in me, that I will never write fiction again. I wondered, for a number of years, whether I could still consider myself to be a writer.

This came up recently because I had this exchange of comments with epicyclical. Cassie was asking whether her readers knew what they wanted to be when they grew up, so to speak. I said that I didn't know, which at age 45, I found most depressing. Cassie answered "But you are a writer -- just what everyone seems to want to be!"

And I let that comment sit for days while I thought about it. I couldn't bring myself to even reply to it, because something inside of me felt the honest thing to say was to protest, "You don't understand. I don't think I'm a writer anymore." And I didn't want to say that because a) everyone would think I was fishing for ego-boo and b) everyone would think I was crazy.

I might have just let things sit without ever answering Cassie, but then I posted the request that lurkers introduce themselves. And I got many lovely, lovely responses, but I was struck by how many said, in effect, it's so cool to read the journal of a real working writer. And once again I'm haunted by the feeling that I'm giving people a false impression.

Folks, whatever you think a working writer is, I'm worried that I ain't it. I have not made a dime selling fiction for several years now. I have not worked on the book for months. And yes, I find it difficult to admit this, because I wanted to be working on the book (but not enough to actually do the work, apparently) and I wanted to be considered "a real writer."

Or do I? And what does that mean to me?

I have thought a lot about this in the past week. And I have come to several tentative conclusions, and I realize that still I have several outstanding questions.

I realized that I was operating on the understanding that if I wasn't working on fiction, right now, continuously (and selling it), this somehow negated my past success. It "undid" my status as a writer. I had to ask myself, did this make sense? Do I cease to consider Harper Lee a writer because she wrote "just" one book (To Kill a Mockingbird), a masterpiece at that? What about Walter M. Miller, Jr., who only had A Canticle for Lebowitz published during his lifetime? Do I not consider them to be writers anymore? What is the sell-by date by which a writer's "writerlyness" expires? A year? Two years? Five years? A decade?

No, I realized. I still think of Harper Lee and Walter M. Miller, Jr. as writers, and I always will. I have had two books published. By the same reasoning, then, I have the same right to consider myself a writer, too.

But what about the fact that I'm not writing?

Well, duh, you point out. You're writing now, Peg. You write faithfully in your LiveJournal, and your words are read eagerly by more than a person or two: the lurkers who spoke up proved that.

And that's true, too. All right, so, I'm a writer. And I'm writing now, in the journal/essay format. Journaling was the first type of writing I ever did, probably, and it has been the most consistent type of writing I have done across my lifetime.

Apparently, the problem boils down to the fact that I'm not presently a writer of fiction right now.

So how do I feel about that?

Frankly, I really don't know. I am not entirely sure why I have stopped, and whether it is permanent. Is it due to depression? Is it lack of willpower? Some character flaw? Is this just the season of life that I am in, that I am a very conscientious parent in an intense period of motherhood? Sandra Day O'Connor, for heaven sakes, took five years off her career to raise her children. Why can't I do the same?

The difficult thing for me to admit is that I am not entirely sure that I want to write fiction any more. Why else am I not writing it? And yet, how hard it is to admit this, when so many perfectly nice people read my journal "to learn what it's like to be a real writer." Will you chide me for false pretenses? Will you denounce me as an imposter?

Will you demand that I give the necklace back?

To sum up: All right, I am a writer. But I am not sure whether I am a working fiction writer. I am not sure I want to be a working fiction writer anymore.

But if not . . . then what the hell is it that I want to be???

This has been a painful and scary entry to write. I have gone back and forth over whether or not I should enable comments. I want to state as clearly as I can that I am not leaving them on because I am begging for reassurances. I am 45 years old and I know that for my own mental health, I have to base my idea of myself on what I think of myself, rather than what other people think about me. But after long thought, I decided that if my intent was to speak truth in this entry, then it made sense to give people a chance to respond.

More to follow later, but I have to get the girls to bed now.

Comments

[carol-j.livejournal.com]

Here's my take: I don’t think people read your journal mostly because of what you are as a writer, but because of what you are, first and foremost, as a human being: a sensitive, insightful, witty woman. Reading your journal is such a pleasure!

Much love,

Carol

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I don’t think people read your journal mostly because of what you are as a writer, but because of what you are, first and foremost, as a human being: a sensitive, insightful, witty woman.

Agreed. I came because 1minnesotagirl told me to check out your journal, and I found someone I thought I'd like to know as a friend. I will also check out WILD SWANS as soon as brain and money allow.

A friend told me once that if she had to choose, she'd take being Harper Lee over being a steadily writing mid-list worker bee...but she loved writing and hoped she could mesh both (the hit and the steady work.)

I have been dry a long time...or rather, the condition keeps the two halves of my writer brain from easily talking. The Brain Underground is trying to get them together, but it's taking time.

But I've written five published novels, one unpublished novel, and 200,000 words of a new series, plus several good nonfiction articles and short stories--all of which I can be proud. Ergo, I am a writer. I hope to write again. I still hope for success and wealth in this lifetime (although I'll settle for good published books, and a big lotto win).

I'm just currently trying to keep up with life crises and Live Journal until the fiction writer muse comes back from vacation.

Do you still wish to write? I understand that WS took years to pull out of yourself, like threads from a tapestry jacket, artistically left hanging out to catch the light. Perhaps the next story is weaving itself together deep inside, as I trust stories are doing for me--and you need to wait until the right moment for them to peep out again?

I have been not reading the Friends page faithfully lately, for reasons I'll get around to explaining in my journal--so things may have changed. But between illness and karate and other things, it sounds like raising your daughters well is a full-time challenge, much less your own happiness and your spouse's.

Perhaps the Muse is waiting for you to take a deep breath, and be ready for her to say "How about this?"

I will point out that I am stalled on that 200,000 words--apparently, my muse wants to do something else for a while. Perhaps for you as well?