To be or not to be: Are you a Writer?
There’s a tweet thread going around asking a series of questions for writers to chime in on. One of the questions is: What was the first moment in your life when you felt like a “real” writer?
It’s a variation on a question writers often ask, of themselves, of each other: Am I a writer? Are you a writer? Is it better to be a “writer” or “author”? When does one become a writer?
Once upon a time, I wanted to be a writer. I had this notion that I had to be published somewhere before I could claim that title. (And not that letter to the editor in the local paper when I was a high school senior.) Then, I acquired the notion that I couldn’t be a writer until I’d made some money at doing it.
It’s a classic dilemma, especially in Americanized places where capitalism reigns. If it doesn’t make you money, it’s not real or it’s a hobby. It’s play. You’re not a musician until a gig paying in something other than beer — or maybe if you have a degree in it, which is often the opposite of making money as you can spend many tens of thousands of dollars for someone to declare you a thing you feel embarrassed to call yourself. You’re a “writer” if you have an MFA and spend your days hiding from your studio apartment or you’re a “writer” if your fifteenth book published to acclaim and hit bestseller status.
It’s no wonder there’s been a backlash against this cocktail-party mentality. But, like the backlash against super-thin models and “thinspo,” the persistent cultural message still resides in our lizard brains telling us we’re just lying to ourselves. And that thing is relentless, a self-regenerating demon of thought that eventually resists all efforts to combat it.
When I published my first book, I thought I could claim “writer” status. (Thing still hasn’t technically made any money, though, so lizard brain’s jury is still out on that one.) The fact that it didn’t sell well, I could chalk up to it being terribly written. The fact that it repelled agents and editors might also be a clue it’s just awful. And yet, it generated good reviews from most people who read it — which is honestly the best you can hope for because not everything is for everyone (see also: The Last Jedi responses or the maelstrom that surrounded the latest Ghostbusters movie). It passed muster with reviewers and writers I respect. And surely that’s enough. (As long as writing is a hobby.)
David Hewson noted that the publishing game has gotten harder, and that earning the living he’s enjoyed from writing is approaching impossible. Not impossible, but certainly getting closer to the station.
What that means is pretty daunting: if you’re playing in that part of the pitch it may not matter one whit how good your book is. If your publisher’s not backing your work with the money to get it into supermarkets and other promotions it will never reach that many readers, however hard you try to promote it yourself. Authors, I’m afraid, can’t make books. We can and should help our publishers to get them out there. But we’re not in a position to put titles on shelves. Only the trade can do that. If they’re not behind you the chances are you’re stuffed.
He also talks about the kinds of books that get attention from publishers chasing their own tails for the next big thing or riding the thing that’s already big. Publishing is a business, yes, and the “big things” pay for the lesser-known works by diverse poets and essayists and even that MFA guy in Starbucks who eventually turns out a domestic novel that will not be housed with “women’s ficiton.”
Fiction by, about, and for women has become its own cottage industry of late between self-help books blatantly marketed to women who are coming apart at the seams trying to be everything to everyone, soft-focus covers containing stories of love and loss and shoes, and the domestic thrillers that often have the word “girl” in the title.
It’s been a Year of Women, as so many have declared, noting the #metoo movement’s attention from the press, the Women’s March, the sudden surge of women running for office, and the cultural push toward women speaking up and out. (Even if actual women in their real lives still feel unsafe speaking out and lack the job security to speak up.)
Like so many movements of late, though, there’s a right and a wrong way to be a woman, to speak up, and to claim space. The internet will be more than happy to help you edify this, and you can find countless divisive squabbles between people sure they know the proper way to conduct yourself and feel your way through the dumpster fire of the past year or so.
In publishing, the “right way” to do women’s suspense is the suburban wife and/or mother who gets drawn into some mystery or event wholly innocently or because of some personality flaw.
She’s no longer Sara Paretsky’s private investigator looking into murders and insurance scams because it’s her job, and she’s good at it and enjoys it. Her “agency” is softer, wrapped in warm laundry in gated communities or sitting comfortably on commuter trains. She’s not usually single anymore, though sometimes she wishes she were. And she’s presented as “more real.” She’s you, me, all of us women sitting at home knitting and spying on the neighbors while contemplating faking our death to get out of paying a divorce attorney or our student loans.
But wasn’t that kind of the point of the body-love movements and the diversity campaigns and the article after article about how millennials are eschewing marriage and commitment and gated communities? Not all women are the same?
Chuck Wendig notes that his Miriam Black books haven’t sold as well as he’d expected lately. Yet, some science fiction and fantasy writers have found greater success with interesting, strong characters who are women or feminine or bisexual half-robot killing machines. Wonder Woman did well at the box office. And Sue Grafton is still approaching the end of the alphabet with a character who isn’t very domesticated.
Which leads me back to the question of whether I’m a writer or not.
I had been. I was. I called myself a writer for years, and it’s probably still in my profile. I just don’t feel like a writer much anymore.
The past two years I’ve written three drafts of things that only live on my shelf/hard drive. I’ve written several terrible drafts of a sequel I cannot seem to finish. Where it goes on the page isn’t where it goes in my head. It keeps hitting snags and the characters get all whiny and maudlin and overly dramatic to the point I want to shoot them all and leave the bodies in a pile on page sixty.
People say, writers write every day. People say writers dig deep past the news of the day and write. People say to channel pain and anger and frustration into craft.
And my brain has said a lot of obscenities in response to all that. It needs a break.
I got lost along the way, and I need to recenter before I try to tackle Davis and her issues — or that half-finished draft about a twentysomething wizard in a world where magic is on the brink of being outlawed, or that quarter draft about a woman whose husband dies in a plane crash.
Then, maybe I’ll be a writer again.
So, dear reader, I ask: Are you a writer? When did you decide to claim that title for yourself.
Thanks for reading. You’ve made it to the end. Go you! You deserve a cookie. Or maybe a acai and berry smoothie. You do you. And maybe offer a clap or two as you brush off the crumbs?
