So, How is your writing?
July 28, 2009
Someone asked me this weekend
“So how is your writing?”
And I answered fine, like it was some common acquaintance . I actually may have said “fine, I suppose…”, as if we hadn’t spoken in some time and I didn’t want to presume. I didn’t think much of the exchange but over the course of the day the conversation repeated it self in different partners; old friends inquiring about my artistic pursuit. Invariably I layered some distance into my response, some subtle shifting of agency: the work was always It and my role somewhere between passive observer and disinterested pimp.
I’m sure it came off as an odd mix of pretension and false modesty, but the truth is it still feels like a presumption to say I’m aspiring to be a writer, let alone that I am one; that any admission of authorship will rob the work of it validity. The uncool parent of a popular child, trying hard not to damn them by association.
July 28, 2009 at 3:30 pm
“The uncool parent of a popular child, trying hard not to damn them by association.”
So are you uncool? Maybe it’s something you could work on.
July 28, 2009 at 3:38 pm
“So are you uncool? Maybe it’s something you could work on.”
No, I’m fairly cool for the most part (to the extent one can self-judge). I just see Writer as a rarified sort of thing, an unrealistic aspiration.
The irony of the neurosis: if anything the opposite is likely a problem: I’m a fairly charismatic dude in person, and it makes me a little suspect of any praise directed toward the writing proper. If I was unlikable I could take satisfaction in grudging admiration and leave it at that; as it is I have filter through general regard to find honest reaction.
July 28, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I’m a fairly charismatic dude in person
And what of your loyal readers who know only your binary-encoded self? Yes yes, the wedding dress picture is a big draw but I’m not convinced that’s the only reason they come here…
I think the honest reaction to your writing is in the question; if it sucked, believe me, no one would be asking you how it was going.
You are a writer because you write, because the act of writing is important to you and you keep at it, even when it is hard to do. That you are able to attract and keep an audience should only serve as further proof that the writing itself is bigger than you as an individual, and can successfully relate shared human experience and emotion. Take the writerly credit AJ, you’ve more than earned it.
(also on a purely selfish note when people ask me about you I tell them that you are a writer so don’t make a liar out of me please and thank you)
July 31, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Pollyanna speaks the truth.
August 9, 2009 at 11:21 pm
My troubles with the “writing” and “writer” concept arise when the conversation goes like this:
“So, what do you do?”
“Well, this, this this and this and I also write.”
“Oh! Have you ever published anything?”
Before the blog I would say, “No. But I’ve been writing since I could shape letters and I’ll do it until I die because I’m a total f–king bitch when I don’t do it.”
Now, I dunno… This culture makes it so unless we are validated by some sort of pre-ordained gatekeeper (who was appointed by whom I always wonder??? I mean who started the whole business of needing the permission and approval of others in order to have validated creative work???) with “publication” we must suck at what we do so the self-publication of a blog feels “less-than” but I certainly feel that the few blogs I read are on par with a lot of so-called published work I’ve read… With more guts and immediacy in a lot of ways…
Oddly enough, the best thing I’ve ever heard about “writer” and “writing” was my ex at one of the few parties I invited him to and which he attended. He plainly said to a group of writers and screenwriters (himself a published academic) mouthing on and off about “process” and “identity”:
“It’s a VERB.”
And, frankly, the more I think about it the more I think all the other ways of relating to it (as noun on paper, as noun of identity) are bullshit.
It’s something we either do or do not do. We are doing or not doing.
And you – no matter the identity crisis and the exceedingly engaging self-analysis it yields – do it well, my friend… Perhaps there is some peace to be mined from this… (Let me know if there is, I’d welcome it…)