What Do You Mean Don't Be a Writer!!!
Today I was looking at articles for inspiration for a budding writer. Yes, I say budding writer because I have been trying to find my literary voice for the past eight years. As I was looking in the articles, I came across a story in the Forbes titled "Why You Shouldn't Be a Writer". I was shocked by the title, and wondering why on Earth anybody would tell it's audience, especially those of us who are creative thinkers, why we should not be considering a writing career. At first I thought, maybe it is because this is a business/entrepreneurial magazine, therefore focus on business or economics, but the tips that were inside the article really struck a nerve with me--who in the world has the right to say I should not consider being a writer?
The first tip was "You're not good at it." Hold the phone--who says I am not a good writer? Was that person in my freshman English class in high school while I was learning to write haiku or sonnets or rant poems or gothic stories that my teacher thought was praiseworthy? Praiseworthy enough to inspire the senior creative writing class to not only read it but look for the intended author of these raw, innocent poems? (I say innocent because this was my first attempts at writing.) What about my journal that I wrote in during my high school and beginning college years? Those entries of a young, naïve teenager who was struggling through growing up in a small county, unable to develop her external voice with no choice but to jot down her thoughts in a college-bound notebook because she was afraid of keeping an actual live diary that could easily be stolen and read by unsuspecting eyes? All those entries and thoughts and yearnings that are still tucked away in a box on a shelf wanting to be read, that is not good writing? Oh, contraire mon amies-- that could someday be a novel ready to be written. And what about the essays I still hold onto critiquing the works of Emily Dickenson, Kate Chopin, Chaucer, and others that teachers enjoyed and critiqued that they could be better and written too well for the class given, that is not good writing?
The second tip: "It is too hard". Yes, writing is a hard process, but is anything easy at first? When I was a freshman in high school, I may have been good at writing but it was difficult at first. One, I didn't know haiku had to be written about an animal or object. Some of them were written as proverbs, and though I got praise for them, I did get criticism for not sticking to the intended assignment, which made me feel really embarrassed and self-conscious. Also, before I got my current job, I went through a lot of dead-end and temporary jobs before I found the one I have held for seven years. Yes, those years were hard, going from cashier to secretary to office assistant to a cashier again, hearing the same phrases, "Too young", "Too inexperienced", "Too naïve", "Too insecure", and many others, with the same meaning that the job was hard for someone like me to grasp. But it isn't true. I am smart, determined, willing, capable, and experienced enough to know that any skill can be perfected. So can writing--it is not a gift or an ability, it is a process even gifted, talented writers have to work at.
The third tip was "It is hard to monetize". This I cannot argue with because I know writing is not something will make me rich. I know this article isn't going to be published in the Chronicle or the Times or some other important paper. I know that I will not win the Pulitzer Prize all for this one post or even gain a standing ovation like other authors do. But why am I writing it? Because writing this post writing now is liberating my soul and making me feel I have something to say, which is more important that any monetary prize or coveted fame will ever give me. I am writing because I hope to tell the world my story and inspire others to do the same. In fact, I am right now ignoring a very boring homework assignment just to get this out to all of you.
Yes, I know that being a writer has it's downfalls--the rejections, the sneers, the red-pen criticisms that every writer experiences. Yes, I know it means it will probably bring no money or prestige or even fame. But no one, and I mean no one, has the voice to say, "Sammy, you shouldn't be a writer", not even an article in a magazine. I know I am a writer not because of what I have produced and published, but what I imagine and set to words in different formats.
The first tip was "You're not good at it." Hold the phone--who says I am not a good writer? Was that person in my freshman English class in high school while I was learning to write haiku or sonnets or rant poems or gothic stories that my teacher thought was praiseworthy? Praiseworthy enough to inspire the senior creative writing class to not only read it but look for the intended author of these raw, innocent poems? (I say innocent because this was my first attempts at writing.) What about my journal that I wrote in during my high school and beginning college years? Those entries of a young, naïve teenager who was struggling through growing up in a small county, unable to develop her external voice with no choice but to jot down her thoughts in a college-bound notebook because she was afraid of keeping an actual live diary that could easily be stolen and read by unsuspecting eyes? All those entries and thoughts and yearnings that are still tucked away in a box on a shelf wanting to be read, that is not good writing? Oh, contraire mon amies-- that could someday be a novel ready to be written. And what about the essays I still hold onto critiquing the works of Emily Dickenson, Kate Chopin, Chaucer, and others that teachers enjoyed and critiqued that they could be better and written too well for the class given, that is not good writing?
The second tip: "It is too hard". Yes, writing is a hard process, but is anything easy at first? When I was a freshman in high school, I may have been good at writing but it was difficult at first. One, I didn't know haiku had to be written about an animal or object. Some of them were written as proverbs, and though I got praise for them, I did get criticism for not sticking to the intended assignment, which made me feel really embarrassed and self-conscious. Also, before I got my current job, I went through a lot of dead-end and temporary jobs before I found the one I have held for seven years. Yes, those years were hard, going from cashier to secretary to office assistant to a cashier again, hearing the same phrases, "Too young", "Too inexperienced", "Too naïve", "Too insecure", and many others, with the same meaning that the job was hard for someone like me to grasp. But it isn't true. I am smart, determined, willing, capable, and experienced enough to know that any skill can be perfected. So can writing--it is not a gift or an ability, it is a process even gifted, talented writers have to work at.
The third tip was "It is hard to monetize". This I cannot argue with because I know writing is not something will make me rich. I know this article isn't going to be published in the Chronicle or the Times or some other important paper. I know that I will not win the Pulitzer Prize all for this one post or even gain a standing ovation like other authors do. But why am I writing it? Because writing this post writing now is liberating my soul and making me feel I have something to say, which is more important that any monetary prize or coveted fame will ever give me. I am writing because I hope to tell the world my story and inspire others to do the same. In fact, I am right now ignoring a very boring homework assignment just to get this out to all of you.
Yes, I know that being a writer has it's downfalls--the rejections, the sneers, the red-pen criticisms that every writer experiences. Yes, I know it means it will probably bring no money or prestige or even fame. But no one, and I mean no one, has the voice to say, "Sammy, you shouldn't be a writer", not even an article in a magazine. I know I am a writer not because of what I have produced and published, but what I imagine and set to words in different formats.
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