A Writer’s Identity

 

Can you call yourself a writer if you aren’t writing?

I think about writing. I read about writing.  I read. But write?

Some suggest that you fake it until you make it, IE you repeat I AM A WRITER, I AM A WRITER, I AM A WRITER, forcing a manifestation of that truth.

There have been moments during the past six months when I make empty promises to myself about writing, and each promise is premised with “when”.

When I finish cleaning the house, when I finish grading the papers, when I am not so damn tired…when is an awful word.

A friend told me an anecdote about Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame.  Apparently Gilbert’s mentor had asserted something similar, that Gilbert wasn’t passionate about writing if she didn’t write.  This makes me wonder if writing is a passion, or the dream of it is.

Even as my fingers awkwardly peck on the keys tonight, I am thinking how I want to catch up on Evil, which I think is wonderfully written.

And then I glance at my mobile office and glimpse the bulging folder of papers that need to be graded.  At least I could grade some while EVIL plays in the background.  Can’t grade while I am trying to write.

And there is the mess in the kitchen.  The laundry sprayed on the basement carpet.  The lunches that need to be made.

I could quit.

Cold turkey.

Then there is that nagging itch and the little voice whispering “You haven’t given it your best shot yet.  How far can you take it?”

I yawn again.

Sip the night time tea.

And consider identity.

How much has writing been a part of my identity?  I often identify as a writer, almost as if it is a badge of honor. I am connected to not one, but two critique groups, which often push me to either pluck a trunk tale, or at least sit at the computer.

In my thirties, writing was a large part of my identity.  My friends were all writers.  I went to conventions and workshops.  For a while I must have owned twenty books on writing, most of which are gone.

But now I am barreling towards fifty, like the stocky dwarves in the river from THE HOBBIT.  I feel as if I am holding reins to so many runaway horses that a few will slip from my tenuous grasp at any moment.  The rein that holds WRITING is getting frayed, yet it is tangled between my thumb and forefinger.

Does giving up writing mean giving up on me?

Stay tuned…

Jennifer