Okay, so the little Q&A is obviously somewhat tongue in cheek. But–this is an issue that I hear a lot from writers I work with. Hell, it’s an issue that I dealt with way back when I started my career. I definitely felt that calling myself a writer was a privilege earned. But what was the privilege that earned it? Hence, the four points of the Q&A above. As I recall, however, the whole issue for me was resolved when I applied for a new passport and had to fill in the blank marked “Occupation.” Since my days pretty much consisted of writing, I guess I felt the truth trumped whether or not I had earned the privilege.
The fact that this is an issue for others has something to do with the ambivalent view the outside world has of writers. We do something most people can’t imagine doing. Yet, anyone who is capable of holding pencil or tapping a keyboard can do it. It doesn’t require any education, even if the MFA Writing Programs would have you think so. We tell secrets; we make our version of the story stick; and oh, it doesn’t pay very much, if at all.
In fact, of all the things that make people disparage writers, it’s the money thing. As I wrote the other day in What Real Writers Know, we are a culture that values product over process. The worth of a particular product is determined by how much money it has made. For those not part of our world, the financial end of the writer’s life–who pays us, why they pay us, how much they pay us–is very murky. And for many, if they can’t put a dollar value to an activity, then it has no value.
The other day on a Facebook writers group that I belong to, this was part of a long conversation: how do you deal with family and friends who question your being a writer? There were a lot of opinions that ran the range from “Fuck anyone who questions you” to “Do your writing in secret.” Both responses seem extreme to me. The middle ground–have confidence in yourself without needing external approval–strikes me as therapeutically correct, but, damn, hard for a person with a normal amount of self-esteem to do.
Valuing yourself and valuing your writing, no matter what–is it really so hard to do? What do you think?
External approval. There’s the rub. Not enough of it. Not when it counts (as in, yes, we want YOUR story, thank you very much). Not from who you hope will endorse your effort. Damn. And yes, I’m a writer.
Hey, that comment below (or above?)–I just wrote that to you!
This post was hard for me to write because I kept wanting to veer off in different directions. It’s a very convoluted topic which touches on not only one’s own sense of self, but also jealousy, and a fear that there’s only so many pieces of pie to go around. I used to be very disparaging of those writers I referred to as “Mrs. Schmertz in Reader’s Digest Land.” What else was that but my own need to pump myself up at the expense of others? Now–thank you wisdom of age–I can forgive myself for being such a jerk, because I think we all were that in some way or another at some time or other.