Am I a Real Writer?
By Kathleen McCleary | June 20, 2018 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Mark Lorch
So here’s the thing: I’m not writing fiction right now. I haven’t written fiction for a solid 18 months, maybe longer. My last novel was published in 2013, the culmination of a writing streak that produced three novels in five years, all of which were agonized over and rewritten and edited and re-edited and shopped around and published and reviewed and read. I started and shelved two different novels over the course of three years after my last one came out and then, dear reader, I stopped writing.
I still write—I have a busy and productive career as a journalist, I teach creative writing to kids and play every writing game and do every writing exercise right along with them—but I don’t have a “work in progress” right now. I don’t have an idea that consumes me; I don’t need to write to maintain my sanity; I don’t write every day.
What have I been doing since I stopped writing? All the work involved in the full catastrophe of any life. Mine happens to include an elderly parent and kids and spouse and work and bills and leaky roofs and grocery shopping and head colds and what’s for dinner tonight? Yours is some variation on that, I’m sure. But if I don’t make writing fiction a part of my full catastrophe, am I really a writer?
When I was young, from age 8 or 9 on, I wrote. I wrote a neighborhood newspaper and I kept a journal and I wrote short stories and I wrote poetry. I kept writing through high school and I wrote when I got to college. I remember vividly during my senior year when a friend mentioned that she’d been doing some non-school-related writing lately, that she was pleased with her writing, that she liked being a writer. When I asked what she was writing she said she’d been writing one or two journal entries a week. To me, that was living, not writing. I marveled at her boldness in declaring herself a writer but I still didn’t think it applied to me.
For a decade or more I would say, “I’m a journalist,” or “I’m an editor,” when people asked what I did for a living, because even though I was writing magazine and newspaper articles regularly and still writing poetry and fiction (for my own amusement) it seemed hubris to declare myself a real writer. Then, after my first book came out, I’d say, “I’m a journalist but I recently published my first novel.” It wasn’t until my second book came out (and I already had a contract on my third, as-yet-unwritten novel), that I began to answer, “I’m a writer” or even “I’m an author.” I felt I’d earned it.
But I think I earned it long before I could say it. I think all of us who have tried to capture the currents of words and images as they run through our brains are writers. It’s ****-ing HARD, what we do, isn’t it? It’s like trying to grasp water as it runs through your fingers and even though you know you’ll never really hold it or contain it, the grasping feels worthwhile, IS worthwhile.
We all have our periods of self-doubt and feelings of being an impostor and dark nights of the soul, myself included. I still think about the characters in those two novels I started and didn’t finish. Why couldn’t I bring them to life, do them justice, tell their stories through to the end? I think about the idea I have for a new novel, an idea I had months ago yet so far I’ve produced exactly seven sentences. I finally worked up the courage to tell my idea to a friend in my small critique group, a smart, straight-shooting, plain-talking brilliant writer. “Oh, my God,” she said, after I told her what I wanted to write. “THAT’S the book I want to read right now.” Her response left me equally gratified and fearful. What if I can’t do it?
Being a writer is such a bold and wonderful thing to be. Whether you’re published or not, whether you scribble stories on napkins or type tomes into laptops, whether you write fantasy or mystery or romance or realistic fiction or horror or adventure—you’re a writer.
No, I’m not working on a new novel right now. No, I haven’t written a book in almost five years.
What do I do for a living? I’m a writer.
[coffee]
Kathleen McCleary is the author of three novels—House and Home, A Simple Thing, and Leaving Haven—and has worked as a bookseller, bartender, and barista (all great jobs for gathering material for fiction). A Simple Thing (HarperCollins 2012) was nominated for the Library of Virginia Literary Awards. She was a journalist for many years before turning to fiction, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and USA Weekend, as well as HGTV.com, where she was a regular columnist. She taught writing as an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and teaches creative writing to kids ages 8-18 as an instructor with Writopia Labs, a non-profit. She also offers college essay coaching (https://thenobleapp.com), because she believes that life is stressful enough and telling stories of any kind should be exciting and fun. When she’s not writing or coaching writing, she looks for any excuse to get out into the woods or mountains or onto a lake. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two daughters and Jinx the cat.
YES!!! I totally concur. Life happens – even to writers. Thank you for this validation.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Thank you.
This morning, thank you.
You’re welcome! I’m glad the column resonated with you
After writing fourteen novels in the 80’s, I took a decade-long break. When I returned to writing books, it was non-fiction in the area of my professional expertise.
Only five-years ago did I return to fiction. I wrote two manuscripts which are now aging in barrel. I do have a WIP that I’m writing in jigsaw pieces that (I trust) will ultimately snap together.
Am I a writer? Of course. But with a difference. Thanks to the long hiatus I am a better writer. The gap is good, Kathleen. Trust it.
“Thanks to the long hiatus I am a better writer. The gap is good, Kathleen. Trust it.” True and wise. Will share this with some friends who’re in that hiatus. Thank you.
Thanks for the encouragement, Benjamin. And yes, Vijaya, I’m going to make Benjamin’s insight that “the gap is good” my new mantra.
Kathleen, I always believed that if you write you are a writer. I still remember when I first started, when people asked me what I did, I replied, “I’m a writer.” Publication came later and was validating, but still, it’s the writing that counts.
I hope the juggling of so many responsibilities will go smoothly, that you’ll always have the writing to rejuvenate you. God bless.
Thank you, Vijaya! Real life experiences feed our fiction-writing, don’t they? All those responsibilities are part of it. And yes, I agree. If you write, you are a writer. Good luck with your writing and thanks for the good wishes.
To this: “…whether you write fantasy or mystery or romance or realistic fiction or horror or adventure—you’re a writer.” I would add non-fiction… if you write, ipso facto…
You are a writer.
For a long, long time I wrote primarily non-fiction (business, journalism, technical) and dabbled in fiction. I can’t count the number of people who told me I wasn’t a “real writer.” Now, I write almost-exclusively fiction, but I’m not traditionally published. Again, I’m often told I’m not a “real writer.” To complicate things, I have had somewhat of a dry spell, too. I say somewhat because I still write or edit daily, but I feel like you–although I have-ish a work in progress–my WIP does not consumes me (which worries me–that’s another story).
Yet. I write. Therefore, like you, I am a writer.
Thanks, Kathleen. I’m a writer. I’m at the keyboard every day. Before that I wrote in journals, typed on a typewriter, kept a notebook in my bag so I could write down things I experienced while on vacations. (now I use my phone). I wrote three novels in five years while living a restful life in Iowa. Am I published? No. Have I tried? Yes. The old way sending a manuscript in those special boxes, following leads from a friend in publishing. In 2014, I queried a reworked novel and had requests for fulls. Did I get an agent? No. So I’ve been reworking, taking classes with Donald Maass, perfecting my craft, blogging every week. I’m a writer and that is something I will always be.
Ah, labels. We’re trained to use them, and worse, to define people, including ourselves, using them. It simplifies things.
A writer writes. But what about people who create stories in cultures with only oral traditions? They don’t write, but they do create and communicate stories. How do we label them?
It’s a big step and hard work to take the imaginary world in your head and communicate it cohesively to others: hard even for an oral storyteller interacting with an audience, harder still for a writer who gets no feedback from the cold blank pages or monitor screen. So it is a special accomplishment to be a writer, and even more so to be a published writer (even if it is only self-published to a few others).
But even if you aren’t currently a writer, if that label doesn’t quite hang right on you at the moment, are you still creating and maintaining worlds in your head? Because that’s a special thing too: most things worth creating have to be imagined first.
And that last brings me to something personal: as popular (and perhaps as easy to write) as they may be, I won’t write stories about dystopias. I’d like to imagine a better (but still imperfect) future, not a worse one, and tell stories about that better future, in the hope that putting a bright vision in people’s heads might raise the odds of that vision becoming real. YMMV, of course.
Creating a story is the first step to creating a future.
What label do we give people who do that?
Titles or labels, do they really matter? I know we are all trained and expected to label ourselves and our status for jobs, taxes, etc., but writing (published or not, fiction or nonfiction) is an occupation (I have 3 novels and many short stories published with a background in journalism and editing). I wonder if it’s a mistake to identify oneself as a writer. We are far more than writers or storytellers or journalists. Aren’t we also creators, explorers, inventors, seekers, students of human nature and relationships, soul-searchers, readers, bloggers, diarists, and most importantly artists of life?
I have needed this post so many times during my writing journey. Times when I hit a dry spell and thought it was an indication that I’m not really a writer.
I’ve needed it each time I open my WIP and try to fix another gaping plot hole in my first novel. It’s a hard slog, and I don’t have all the skills I need to fix its problems. Yet.
The only way to get the skills is to take more classes, revise the work yet again, and get more feedback. But I feel like a fraud when I see how bad the draft is. Would a “real writer” write such drivel?
I wasn’t sure I could claim being a writer even after getting two short stories published in anthologies. After all, no one really reads short stories anymore, right?
As you say, “It’s like trying to grasp water as it runs through your fingers and even though you know you’ll never really hold it or contain it, the grasping feels worthwhile, IS worthwhile.” That sums up writing perfectly for me.
Thank you.
YES! YES!! a thousand times YES!!!
Henry Porter is back with a new thriller after an eight year gap.
This is a subject about which I go around and around with my colleagues. It’s really a matter of who asks. If another writer asks, I’ll admit it. If I’m at a party, I just say I’m a writing teacher…because if I say I’m a writer, I get varying results that aren’t always pleasant. I don’t mind, “Oh really? I wrote a poem in eighth grade. I ought to unearth it!” Those are fine. It’s the people who project some weird fantasy on me that I don’t like. Anyway – Wonderful article. I shared it with my class.
I am still too shy to call myself a writer, although in my heart it feels it is what I have been my whole life. I have not published anything yet (except for the typical Ph.D. thesis), but still have this small hope that my current WIP (a speculative fiction novel) might one day see the light of a book shelf. – So at the moment, if people ask what I do, I simply say “I am writing a book”, describing the process without claiming the title of a “proper” author.
Thanks for a great post that really resonated with me, because I, too, am a journalist and have spent more time writing columns, feature stories, reviews and ad copy than I have writing fiction. But I am a writer. Have been since I wrote my first short story at age 12. There have been long periods of little or no writing, except letters to far-away relatives, but I always come back to it. I think some of us are born to be writers, whatever form our writing takes, and we can never leave it entirely.
And I really liked this paragraph, “It’s ****-ing HARD, what we do, isn’t it? It’s like trying to grasp water as it runs through your fingers and even though you know you’ll never really hold it or contain it, the grasping feels worthwhile, IS worthwhile.”
Those times the creativity is flowing so swiftly our fingers on the keyboard can’t keep up is the most rewarding for me. That’s when I know I’m in the groove, and the groove feels so nice, even though the work is hard.
Thank you for such a validating article. I feel like writing is a hobby but I do have my own blog and several WIPs — some of my blogs have been accepted on 3rd party sites for publication. I tell people I am an “aspiring writer”, and a friend of mine gave me wise words –“all you have to do to be a writer is write” :-) I don’t know how many articles or books I’d need to have published before I actually consider myself a real writer though :-) Thank you for this!