The Writer
My boss recently offered me access to a vacation home of sorts that he owns out in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a place that by all reports is a ramshackle hunting getaway in need of more than a little work. “It’d be the perfect place for you to write, with a glass of wine, a beret, and a pipe.”
I don’t own either a beret or a pipe at the moment, and under the circumstances I imagine something more stern than a glass of wine might be in better order. But the image of “the writer” is clear. Off in the woods, alone, distinctive behavior and appearance, Updike’s “transfigured mode of being, ” to which Ann Kroeker and Charity Singleton Craig refer in the introduction to On Being a Writer.
But is this what it is to be a writer? Distinguished by enigmatic behaviors or personality? Kroeker and Craig ask the question in their book:
What makes a writer a writer? Is it about giftedness? Goals? Is it about output or a byline? If measured by output, does daily blogging count? Are you considered a writer only if you are published, even if you’ve turned out dozens of unpublished poems and essays? To be an official writer, does someone have to pay you for your work?
Not long ago the barista in my coffee shop asked if I was a writer. I—looking up from my writing—told her yes, without hesitation, and also told her where she could find my work, if she wanted to read it. Though I’m not sure when I started calling myself a writer, I do recall that I have not always done so. In my early days of blogging, I was reluctant even to call myself a “blogger, ” preferring to mumble, almost ashamedly, that I “do a little writing online.” It may have been the first time I got a check for an article, or the first time I was asked to write at a website that had actual editors, rather than at my own blog or guest-blogging for a friend. Curiously enough, it might even have been starting to work as an editor that gave me the permission I needed to call myself a writer.
In any case, when the shift in how I self-identified happened, I went from writing in order to reach some elusive plateau where I could legitimately call myself a writer to writing because I already am one. I have a body of work to support such a claim. The irony is that in order to have produced that body of work, it’s arguable that I had been a writer all along.
Discussion
We’re reading and discussing the first three chapters of On Being a Writer together this month. The book offers several discussion questions following Chapter 1 • Identify. Perhaps you’d choose a question or two to answer in the comments as part of our discussion.
- What comes to mind when you think writer?
- When did you first call yourself a writer? If you haven’t yet identified as a writer, why not?
- What other identities have you embodied? Do those identities conflict with the writing life?
- To what extent do others view you as a writer? How supportive are they of your writing identity? How does outside support—or lack of it—affect your writing identity?
- Does the kind of writing you produce affect your ability to identify as a writer? Do you feel you need to transition to a more substantial project or different subject matter?
- Why do you write? What motivates you? How does that influence your identity as a writer?
- Do you distinguish a difference between an author and a writer? If so, explain the difference and how your identity is affected by those differences.
Join us as we explore topics related to the writing life in this helpful book.
Our schedule will be as follows:
October 14: Introduction & Chapter 1 — Identify
October 21: Chapter 2 — Arrange
October 28: Chapter 3 — Surround
We recommend you purchase a copy of the complete book for our community discussion, or you can download an ebook version of the first three chapters at Noisetrade for free.
DOWNLOAD FREE EXCERPT AT NOISETRADE
Photo by Daniel Zedda, Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by LW Lindquist.
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Kate Motaung says
This is such a great discussion point, and one that I wrestled with for a long time. In recent months, I couldn’t even bring myself to admit to a fourth grader, “I am a writer.” My default setting was always, “I like to write.” I wrote a post about the struggle to claim that identity here:
http://katemotaung.com/2015/03/09/on-claiming-identity-as-a-writer/
Funny enough, when I was recently asked to speak on the radio, I balked, “I’m not a speaker! I’m a writer!” It was only then that I had the “Aha!” moment, when I actually caught myself admitting out loud: I am a writer.
Thanks for hosting this discussion! Love the book!
Donna says
Kate, I love how you wrote about “admitting it!” Yeah, I just caught myself doing the very same thing and it surprised me! 🙂 And, wow! 40 publications!
Love how you shared this process through the conversation with a little girl.
Owning your identity – seems so simple. Why isn’t it? I suppose the answer to that is different for every person. thanks for sharing!
Will Willingham says
Everyone’s writing journey is so different, it sort of precludes having a rite of passage, but it would sure be helpful, wouldn’t it? 🙂
Your experience sounds a little like Charity’s, in identifying as a writer as opposed to an artist—and it makes me wonder how often it works this way for us, that we first come to identify as a writer in contrast to what (we think) we are not.
Thanks for joining the discussion, Kate. 🙂
Donna says
LW, I am enjoying the image I have of you in a beret with a pipe… maybe a bubble pipe! 😉
#3. What other identities have you embodied? Do those identities conflict with the writing life?
This question takes me directly to my morning journal where I write about being an artist with ease. The thing is, and I find this strange, I have only been painting since June 4 of this year. I have been writing since childhood. Off and on I have said I am a writer but it always feels just a little bit illegal, and when people ask me what I do these days that is my go-to answer (well, I guess no one has asked me since June 4 because maybe today I would say I am an artist… or and artist with a book in the works… or a writer who paints). It’s easier than trying to explain why I am not ‘working’ anymore.
I’m not sure accepting the identity’s label comes from ‘out there’. I have received all sorts of support and encouragement for both, yet “painter” feels like who I am. “Writer” feels like something I do – both are vitally important to me – both help me understand my feelings about things, my reactions to life, my place in the universe. BUT, painting is different. This morning, like most mornings, I painted before the sun came up. I wrote this: “When I paint there is nothing else. Time falls away and hot coffee grows cold. The sun rises outside my windo without me. I am rising my own sun. I am painting.” and then “When I paint I am the most like me I’ll ever be.”
And, I am 100% sure that my painting allows me to write these days. It came along just in time. Painting gives me something that I need because the nature of the project I am working on as a writer (see? I SAID IT! HA!) depletes me, even though it heals me. If I didn’t have painting I’d be in a real pickle….with a beret…and a pipe.
Will Willingham says
“When I paint I am the most like me I’ll ever be.”
That right there. Would that we could each find that thing that makes us the most like ourselves. 🙂
The interesting thing your comment makes me think of is that there is the school of thought that says that to be an author, one has published a book. And I am wondering if you would consider yourself an author more easily than a writer (though I think for many it might work the other way around).
Donna says
I’m not sure. I guess I’ll find out soon enough! 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
What other identities have I embodied? Well–daughter, sister, student, beauty queen (though the beauty part is debatable), student, wife, aunt, mother, grandmother, quilter, baseball fan, teacher, speaker, missionary, nurse… and (in wee voice) writer. Perhaps everything we do feeds into and wraps around our writing life rather than conflicts with it. I can explore any subject through and with words. But I’m still stumped by the question, “What do you write?”
I loved Ann’s bio for the Labyrinth: “I write, because no one listens to me.” Maybe I write to I can listen to myself, too.
I took Ann and Charity’s workshop that spawned this book. My response to one of the assignments is here:
http://sandraheskaking.com/2015/09/when-i-was-not-a-writer-and-my-words-were-poo/
P.S. I’m imagining you in a flannel shirt, leaning back in your chair with with feet crossed on the desk, wearing a beret, cradling the a pipe’s bowl, gazing out the window at the hills…
Will Willingham says
Ah, because you understand I wouldn’t actually smoke the pipe, though I might hold it. 😉
This is good to think of, the ways that our whole life envelopes and entwines our writing life, rather than conflicting with it. Because I think it is very easy to convince oneself that our lives are in conflict with or somehow set against our writing life, as though writing is somehow set apart. It can be, I think, a means to living.
Laura Brown says
1. In general, a person who writes something that no one has assigned, for unknown someones to read, regularly (or irregularly) over time.
2. Around age 12, and it was possibly my first conscious identity besides what was given to me at birth.
3. Many (some for life, some for a time, some unwanted). They have been “embodied” to different degrees. It’s possible to say they conflict with a writing life, but probably, more generously, more realistically, they shape it.
5. No, and maybe.
6. Can’t help it.
7. I’m a traditionalist on this one: An author has published a book with the shaping and filtering (editorial, dialogical, advisory, etc.) help of others. And I think it’s better bestowed than claimed.
Will Willingham says
I’m going to ask you to say a bit more about #6, if you don’t mind sharing about what that might look like. For instance, how does one know if one can’t help but write? (I know this is a common view among writers, and I have believed it myself at times. It is interesting to me.) What happens if one doesn’t write? And I wonder if you have ideas about how many of us as writers often say things like this, but at the same time also express many things about being unable to write.
Laura Brown says
Sure, I’ll say more. But I want to think about it more first.
Laura Brown says
OK. Second draft of my answer to #6.
Why do you write?
Because I see something and want to describe it, to preserve it for myself and/or to convey what it was like to someone else. Because I want to figure out what I think about something. Because it helps to clear out the clutter in my head. Because I like being published sometimes. Because there’s pleasure and the satisfaction of good work (which is also hard work) in writing and revising and tinkering with a sentence until it’s as true as I can make it. Because when it’s going well, I have that timeless transcendent experience Donna has when she’s painting. Because my words are sometimes meaningful, helpful, encouraging, comforting, informative, entertaining, persuasive to others. Because I have always liked playing with words, and there are always new-to-me ones I haven’t used yet. Because there are questions, whether the asking comes from me or someone else, and writing is a way to answer.
As for “can’t help it,” there are many notebooks, sticky-notes, index cards, emails, letters, computer files (and maybe a napkin or two) that would attest to it as something I can’t not do. Because being caught without a pencil and paper (or at least the voice memo phone function) feels like being accidentally barefoot. Do you buy that?
And I’m a writer who has sometimes been unable to write. Unable to finish some of what I’ve started. So I’m still thinking about your last two questions (only one of which has a ? after it).
Thanks for pressing me on this, LW.
Will Willingham says
I like that you are happy to acknowledge that there is a pleasure to writing, and to being published (I think that the writing-is-torture-but-we-have-no-choice idea can sometimes become the dominant image of the writer). I think it’s good to recognize a pleasurable thing, and find value in it rather than dismissing that aspect of it because we see a calling or some other intrinsic requirement. So I like that. 🙂
I do buy that. 🙂
And I think that it is possible that both are true, that we can feel inwardly and outwardly compelled to write, in the “can’t not” sense, and also find ourselves at least momentarily without the words to do the thing.
Thanks for coming back to the question. 🙂
Charity Singleton Craig says
I love the places this conversation is going. These stories of naming ourselves are real and important. I also think that calling ourselves “writer” is going to be one of many titles we claim or are bestowed over time. Fitting “writer” among the others becomes a real challenge.
L. L. Barkat says
I keep thinking about the difference between claiming and having something bestowed. (I see both you and Laura have taken this up).
Oddly, I think we can claim something others refuse to bestow. And I think we can refuse to claim something others *have* bestowed. There are multiple reasons these might be the case. And sometimes we are the ones in error (and they are right) and sometimes we are right (and they are either in error or don’t yet understand how to be right in regards to who we really are). Untangling all this can be a delicate matter. Sometimes vital for our very lives. Sometimes not such a big deal.
I don’t much claim “writer” at the moment, as I’ve said elsewhere. Though I am obviously a writer in both skill and professional opportunities. It’s a matter of goals and of what I’m more intrigued about claiming (and the threads I wish to follow and have time to follow).
And for some reason I am now thinking of Megan’s bestowal of “Gah-linda” on me. 🙂
Laura Brown says
Your second paragraph: I would agree, and I don’t think it’s odd.
Will Willingham says
I am thinking about the delicate matter of untangling when others bestow a particular designation or identity, and whether we choose to accept that or not — that sometimes that can be a matter of someone challenging us to put on such an identity we have not yet adopted, and sometimes that can be a matter of someone recognizing an identity we already possess and our agreement to live into it as the truth.
L. L. Barkat says
Well, or vice versa. Someone bestowing an identity on us that feels patently false to our inner truths. Do we accept it just because of the force of the bestowal? What gives us the strength to stand up to that kind of thing, especially if the bestowal is coming from a group—either family, friends, or colleagues?
Laura Brown says
Not all giving of unwanted or uncomfortable or inaccurate identities is bestowed. There’s bestowing, and naming, and labeling, and accusing …
Donna says
The thought of someone bestowing an identity on me? ewe. to put it mildly.
The thought of someone bestowing a title on me feels different. Very different.
That said, I’m pretty sure this is a recent awareness.
And, I have come to believe that we come into the world with a distinctive leaning towards those ‘things’ which resonate with our gifts. As we interact with activities and ‘things’ that interest and energize us, we are discovering that part of our Identity. Identity, in that respect, is something we uncover and then claim – like, “HEY… I’m an ARTIST?” or “What do you know? I am a WRITER?!” Then we feel all guilty and boastful at that glimmer (or boom) and back away from it. Or someone TELLS us that we cannot call ourselves ‘that’ because it is conceited and self serving, and so we become disconnected from that part of ourselves. Maybe. It’s fun to think about.
To me a title is more of a socially derived label so that we know which ‘category’ we belong to. 🙂
Megan Willome says
Well, you are! I described you that way to my best friend this weekend, and being a musical nerd like me, she instantly understood.
L. L. Barkat says
Oh, look at that. Very fun. [waves wand and smiles 🙂 ]
Donna says
I guess the question that I have now relates to how we classify the word “writer” – is this an identity or is this a title?
Will Willingham says
Yes and yes. 🙂 I think it just depends on how we decide to use it, which can change over time and circumstance.
Bethany says
I absolutely love this book.
2. The first time I remember referring to myself as a writer was in the On Being a Writer workshop. I was reluctant because I wasn’t sure how long I had to be writing/needed to keep writing, in order to qualify for the title. Is it a permanent identity, such as being a mom. Or is it descriptive of something you are currently involved in? “I’m a student.” The other hesitation came/comes from issues raised in your fifth question.
What a fun book club, I look forward to future posts.
Will Willingham says
To this, and Donna’s comment below, I wonder if it really just depends on whether one considers writing an activity (as in the chapter Ann discusses running/jogging) where one’s engagement (or level of engagement) with the activity is a strong factor in whether or not it’s an appropriate way to identify, where I think parent, being of a particular ethnic group, being a particular gender are more intrinsic things that are not altered so much by circumstances (except in the case of that initial passage into parenthood).
But at the same time, there are those who will say, and I won’t argue with their experience, that being a writer is just as essential to their identity as these other things.
Goes to Charity’s question as to whether Harper Lee was still a writer after she didn’t write (yet, she’s still the author of the book(s)). Or to Laura’s reluctance to consider herself a writer “at the moment,” suggesting this can be a transient thing.
(Personally I think it is all of these things and none of them at the same time. 🙂
Donna says
The concept of it being transient is really interesting. That statement about Harper Lee caught my imagination, too.
Bethany says
Thanks for the thoughtful responses, I find this whole discussion intriguing.
Donna says
It’s funny the internal rules we have for things. A woman who gives birth to a child is a mother, and a man who fathers a child is a father. A person who bowls is a bowler. A person who prepares meals is a cook. A person who skis is a skier.
But the arts – now we are getting personal …even more personal than parenthood, it seems. Of course, parenthood brings with it all kinds of fears and insecurities, but we generally don’t have the same problem identifying with the labels of parenthood as we do with ‘writer’ or ‘artist’ or ‘photography’ or ‘dancer’.
Sandra Heska King says
Hmmm… I bowl occasionally, but I wouldn’t call myself a bowler. And I prepare a lot of meals, but I’m not sure I’d call myself a cook… or a baker…
But I still call myself a mother even though my kids are adults and I don’t do as much mothering…
Terri says
I have a crooked little writing life. I have been published but find that fact easy to dismiss, largely because the essays and content were written for magazines and catalogs directed toward one demographic. Currently the only writing I manage to produce are completing my assignments for a program in spiritual direction. But I long to get back to my creative writing.
I too have many names/identities, but only two I want clarified, or maybe solidified is the more correct term. Artist. Writer.
There have been moments when I felt named, or identified, as a writer. Being asked to write a column was one. The second was hearing a friend and professional writer read my own written words aloud (an unexpected surprise) during a gathering of friends and family as she named me a fellow writer. I want to cling to that and to find the courage to write again. I join you with hope.
Bethany says
Terri,
I’m glad that you shared this. You’ve been published in magazines, catalogs, written a column, and you desire to write again. You certainly sound like a writer to me.
Yes, do hope. And please write. 🙂
Sandra Heska King says
Hello, fellow writer. I think we’re all a little crooked, more so at some times than others. 😉
Will Willingham says
The hearing of one’s written words being read by another is something we don’t experience very often. It’s a very powerful thing, I think. Very affirming.
Donna says
I wonder if there is a gender difference in how men and women see themselves.
Donna says
…. with regard to identity as a writer, I mean.
Will Willingham says
It is possible that there is a gender-related difference in how writers identify themselves. I was remembering this article by Kelly Agodon on the difference in approach to submissions.
https://medium.com/@kelliagodon/submit-like-a-man-how-women-writers-can-become-more-successful-9031ffc6043a
Vicki Addesso says
Before I learned that Tweetspeak had chosen to do a book club with On Being A Writer, I decided I was going to read the book and write about it on my Tumblr blog. So, I will share the link to the first post which is about Chapter 1, Identify.
Writing About Reading About Being A Writer
http://vmaddesso.tumblr.com/post/128485885046/writing-about-reading-about-being-a-writer-i-have
This question, of being able to identify myself as a WRITER, is one I struggled with for quite some time.
Will Willingham says
So glad to have you stop in, Vicki. And fantastic that you are already writing your way through the book on Tumblr.
I thought it was so interesting that because of the type of writing you’ve done, namely memoir, that you are less inclined to call yourself a writer because of the genre’s perceived importance, and yet you recognize that the genre has been important for you — and I’m betting that you would readily call many of those whose work in memoir you’ve read, “writer.” 🙂
I’m also thinking that you might be another who somehow finds “author” a little easier mantle than “writer” given you have a book. Another something that is so intriguing to me, how we distinguish the two in various ways. 🙂
Vicki Addesso says
I loved reading all the comments and the posts…
and I do wonder, as Donna mentioned, if there is a general difference in how men identify themselves regarding the arts (i.e. being a writer.) Interesting that so far all who have commented so far are women.
And, I am loving this book…
Terri says
Men as writers vs. women as writers. Interesting to think about. In a local writing group there are at least five women for every man. Does anyone have a comparison from the published world? Do men naturally feel more secure in any given vocation? Do they feel so as writers? Do they work more confidently in solo rather than in groups?
I also find the idea of different genres of writing, as potentially defining our identity, interesting?
Thank you for your welcoming, and affirming comments.
Laura Brown says
I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but the dude in the photo — I don’t think he’s a writer. I think he’s a dancer. A ballerino.
Will Willingham says
Heh. Or maybe he is both?
I wonder, is this a case of bestowing upon or recognizing the identity of another? 😉
Laura Brown says
Oh, goodness. Are we getting too hung up on “bestow” and “identity”? I can bestow only if (1) I tell him directly that he’s a dancer, and (2) I mean it as (and ideally he takes it as) a compliment, an honor, a gift. And by dancer I mean, simply, one who dances.
Nah, this is just old-fashioned assuming based on appearance. Just an act of seeing. (C’mon. The jeans rolled up like ballerino tights? The muscled calves and the self-aware stance of the feet, who clearly believe they are beautiful? The lack of notebook, beret or pipe?)
On deeper inspection, though, there might be something bulging out and weighing down his left pocket on his safari shirt. And there’s a pencil-shaped crease in his jeans pocket. OK, I see now: he’s a poet.
Donna says
EGADS I just realized something! In thinking about the question of whether I consider myself a writer, or not, my answer was influenced by a whole lot of baggage. Turns out, more than anything, I was really trying to fall in line with how other people see me. I can see, in retrospect, that I wanted my response about myself match what I think others might agree with. It smacks of “do I actually deserve to claim a particular label/title… because others who know more and are way more important than I am may say I am full of it?”
Do I consider myself a writer? Me? The woman in my mirror? Having rethought the whole thing I can honesty say, emphatically…. SOMETIMES!!! 🙂 I’m happy with that.
When I am working on a writing project I consider myself, without question, a writer. In between projects I am someone who likes to write. I will describe myself with whatever I am working on at the moment… and if you boil that down, I’m just me, doing things that interest and speak to me.
Diana Trautwein says
Wowza, I missed this somehow earlier in the week. Thank God for the newsletter, that’s all I can say. What a grand discussion! This whole identity thing is pretty huge, isn’t it? I generally say, “I do some writing.” The only place that says writer is my business card, I think. And that is now out of date because we’ve moved. And I do think I have some confusion/apprehension between ‘writer’ and ‘author.’ I’ve not written a book. I’ve had essays published in two books, have a magazine column in print, I write on my blog and an online magazine, and I write prayers for worship. That’s it. Seem to me that does not a writer make. I could never earn a living at it, though I’ve enjoyed the occasional (very small) paycheck. Though I have always written something (newsletters for kids’ activities or my own, Christmas letters, sermons/prayers) I’ve never journaled extensively (except for keeping food journals for WAY too many years and writing out my own prayers during the decades I had growing kids in the house. I needed help in the worst way during those years and that was one way that seemed to work. Other identities stick firmly – most powerfully — daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, pastor, friend, spiritual director. Those I claim without hesitation or embarrassment. Writer? Feels much more uncertain and kind of like I’m reaching, to be honest.
Will Willingham says
Always happy when you stop by.
Here’s the question I had as I read this response: If someone else were to say they were doing all those things, would you readily say they were a writer?
But I also think that for some of us the actual title is not so important as the act. And maybe that’s what you’re demonstrating here. That whether you consider yourself “a writer” or not, you’re doing the work, and that may be a more important thing.
Diana Trautwein says
Thanks for making your usual charitable and helpful response to this odd hemorrhage of words, LW.