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Sometimes the best compliments are those heard by accident.
“My wife is a writer,” my husband said to a long-lost friend on the phone recently. I then heard him telling her about some writing awards I had won, and I realized his words made me sound more accomplished than I feel like I am. Even though what he told her was accurate, it sounded strange–and nice–to overhear what Geoff (my idea of a real writer) had to say about me. I mentioned it later.
“I’ve noticed you seem uncomfortable telling people you’re a writer,” Geoff said. “Why is that?”
“I’m never sure what to say when someone asks what I do,” I said. “I feel like I’m a fraud if I say I’m a writer.”
“So who gets to claim they’re a writer?” he asked.
“Someone who does it full time, I guess. Someone with a journalism degree. Someone who makes the majority of their income from writing or has achieved a certain level of fame.”
He retrieved his well-worn copy of John Gardner’s “Art of Fiction” and read the following excerpt (which I’ve abridged) of what Gardner believes to be the definition of a writer:
“The storyteller’s intelligence is partly natural, partly trained. It is composed of several qualities, most of which, in normal people, are signs of either immaturity or incivility: wit (a tendency to make irreverent connections); a refusal to believe what all sensible people know is true; mischievousness and childishness (an apparent lack of mental focus and serious life purpose, a fondness for daydreaming and telling pointless lies); a marked tendency toward excessive eating, drinking, chattering and a weird fascination with dirty jokes; a strange mixture of playfulness and embarrassing earnestness; patience like a cat’s; a criminal streak of cunning; psychological instability; and finally, an inexplicable and incurable addiction to stories, written or oral, bad or good.”
“Except for that drinking part,” Geoff said, “That’s pretty much you.”
“I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”
He laughed. “Probably both. I just know that when I first ran across that quote, I recognized myself immediately.”
“Just think,” he continued. “Call yourself a writer and you have a job description with a built-in excuse for what you always thought were character flaws.”
I think he could be on to something there.
I’ve learned that being in the company of other writers can make me feel more like one myself. That first occurred to me a few years back while at a statewide gathering of writers. I was having such a good time, and realized it was because I finally felt like I belonged, like I had something in common with everyone there. Writing can be such a solitary thing. There’s no water cooler to cluster around with your cohorts on a regular basis and compare complaints.
But once a year, there is. (Although many of my cohorts end up clustering around a jug rather than a water cooler.)
The West Virginia Writers conference is held the second weekend in June at Cedar Lakes in Ripley. (That’s next weekend, for those of you without a calendar handy.) The workshops at the conference are great, and it’s going to be fun getting to meet the likes of Lee Maynard (author of Crum) and listening to a reading by Chuck Kinder (legendary W.Va. author and current head of the writing program at Pitt). But it’s hanging out with all the other writers from around the state that I most look forward to. It’s not every day that I get to consort with those as immature, uncivil, and mischievous as me. (Last year’s conference included a field trip to WalMart to try on totally inappropriate clothes. I suspect it’s going to become a tradition.)
I’m not sure why I have such difficulty seeing myself as a writer. I write all the time. No, it isn’t my day job, but it’s become a huge part of who I am.
And who I want to be.
