This is going to be one of those posts where I tell you about things that worry me, things that hold me back. If you can’t tell by the limited number of places that I’ve been published, I’ve not been doing what I will call “the writer thing” for terribly long. For much of my career I’ve had to write--letters, speeches, reports, and then later, papers for grad school. And in the midst of all of that, I’d occasionally take the time to write the random piece of fiction. I took a creative writing class in 2013, which reminded me just how much I enjoyed writing. It was probably around then that my dream job really solidified around the idea of being a writer. But not until the COVID pandemic, and its accompanying sequestering, that I started plugging into a “writing community”--following people who wrote on Twitter, attending virtual readings hosted by lit mags, and trying to do some writing of my own.
Even in the last six months, I have struggled to consider myself a writer (see the previous post about being a “fledgling writer"). I was at a friend’s birthday party in February, and she introduced me to a couple of her friends by saying, “This is Richard; he’s a writer as well.” The fact that she would describe me as such was kind of intimidating; I didn’t think I had really done enough to be considered a writer yet. I didn’t have anything published, no one knew me. I was so new at “the writer thing” I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. She was the first one to tell me that putting a pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard, in this case) is what makes someone a writer. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that fact, but it’s a good piece of basic information to hold onto.
Last week, I took another step in my journey when it comes to being a “real writer.” I now have my own website (here you are, on it) declaring myself as such. There’s not much here yet. I’ve had a few things published, but not many. I still question whether anything I write is actually good enough to be published. The industry standard of about a 5-7% acceptance rate certainly doesn’t help me answer that question in the affirmative. But I have to believe, day by day, that the words I have to say mean something. The stories I want to tell, and the way I want to tell them, will speak to someone.
I struggle with the fact that my writing style, and the perspective from which I approach most of what I look at, isn’t going to resonate with a lot of people. I don’t think that I’ll ever be a household name, or even a really common one amongst writing circles. In many ways, I feel like I’m too calm, too tame for those who have experienced real trauma in their lives. I come from a white, middle class world where I never had anything incredibly traumatic happen to me. But I also am annoyed by the typical person from that same situation. I’m not edgy enough for the real punks, but too punk for the conservatives. And that weird limbo leaves me feeling like I will consistently struggle to find a wide audience for what I write. But that doesn’t mitigate the value of what I have to say. So I’ll continue to write, hoping that I can find places where my voice does resonate, that what I have to stay, the stories I tell speaks to someone, to give them a sense that they aren’t alone in what they are going through, or to give them an escape from an otherwise shitty situation.
Comments