January 14th, 2020

On calling myself a writer

There’s plenty of posts and articles and little essays out there with titles similar to this one and for years I was a bit dismissive of them. They are usually written by folks at the beginning of their writing careers with little or perhaps nothing published, wondering when they will earn the title. My dismissal comes from my assumption that the title is irrelevant–writers write, so write. People will call you what they call you, or not. What you do matters more than what you’re called.

Which remains true. And yet…

I realized recently, I don’t think I’ve actually ever introduced myself as a writer, really. I’m either at an event where everyone’s a writer or everyone knows I’m a writer–a festival, a reading, a writing group–or I’m at work or a work-related event, where I’m known by a completely different title and writing rarely comes up even if some of my coworkers are also aware of the writing thing, or I’m out with friends and I let them introduce me as they will. If no one introduces me, I actually usually default to just my job as what I “do.” I don’t default to writing because…well, if I’m honest it’s because I don’t make a living at it. A few times recently, someone else has presented me as a writer that first inevitably led to questions about how I structure my days, which is around my job, which is disappointing to an interlocutor who maybe was just imagining me writing glorious fictions all day. Or so I imagine. So I just don’t start it.

Is this really sad, for someone with three books and some modest success? Very very occasionally–but more often lately–I’m not at work or a writing event, and there’s no friend or acquaintance to introduce me. For all anyone knows, I’m an accountant or a seamstress or a mob enforcer, and though honestly it’s rare that anyone’s really shown any curiosity about me at all, at some point there’s going to be awkward small talk and someone will ask me what I do and then what will I say?

Nothing. Anything. It doesn’t matter. Mob enforcer. It remains as true as it always was that what I do is more important than what I call myself but it does seem odd and somewhat disappointing that so far down the line into a career that’s beyond my wildest dreams I still don’t feel comfortable presenting it to strangers.

You know, I wanted to write this as a piece of introspection, a way of exploring what flaw in me keeps me from feeling comfortable with this aspect of myself but 463 words in, I have come to a surprising conclusion: this is other people’s faults! I didn’t expect to end up here, but here we are: it can very unpleasant to tell other people I write books. There is, per above, the expectation that if I were a real writer, I would be writing those books between 9-5 Monday to Friday and I’m not doing that, so I can’t, like, prove I’m the real deal or anything.

No, I can. But social norms seem to indicate I should shrug and let my fellow party guests assume I self-published some sort of illustrated diary about my cats instead of just getting out my phone to google the glowing reviews in national papers or the author page on a major publisher’s website or the award nom. Because that sounds monstrous, right? And besides, no one asks that of dentists. If you tell me at a party you have a dental practice uptown, I don’t assume you’re deluded and ask leading questions about your licensing exam. And honestly, if you were still in dental school and studying and working towards eventual success but not quite there yet, what business would it be of mine?

So yeah, I’m a writer, but sometimes people are mean to writers so if you seem like you might be mean to me I won’t tell you. I will tell you I am a production project manager, which I also am, but no one knows what that is, so for some reason, it sounds truer.

I started writing this piece feeling a bit bad about being such a meek little flower, but it turns out I have WELL-FOUNDED FEARS. So there, world!

PS–I wrote this post about a year and a half ago but somehow things lurk in my drafts folder and never get posted. Since I wrote it, I have largely stopped telling new people about the writing, and since I’m not publishing at all lately, they mainly don’t find out. It’s great! A good decision–really frees me up from a lot of bad feelings and awkwardness! Although, one time, a newish acquaintance whom I quite like asked me a lot of questions about my life and I did tell her–she seemed so genuinely interested–and she was overwhelmed with glee. It was actually moving, how happy she was for me that I’d achieved this thing. The next time I saw her, she’d ordered one of my books from the library. Honestly, I completely understand why that’s not the usual reaction but it is so nice that it happens once in a while.