A question that seems to come up time and time again on podcasts, blogs and forums is this: “When do I know that I’m a writer?”
Answers and advice vary in profundity. There’s: “Not until you’ve written your 5th book;” “When you get paid;” “Believe in yourself that you are a writer and you become a writer;” “a writer writes.”
All of which is a crock of shit, because the question itself is flawed. Here’s a crass allegorical joke:
It’s Scotland, somewhat stereotypically. A man walks into the bar and asks the bartender for a drink. The bartender pours up a beer and slides it over to his patron.
The bartender says, “Pre’y good beer, thar, dunchoo thank?” and the patron agrees that it’s a good beer. “But they doon’ call meh McClarty the beer pourer, naw doo thay?” The patron assumes that people do not call him by that particular name. “Pre’y nice bar here, dunchoo thank? But they doon’ call meh McClarty the bar builder, naw doo thay?” Again, the patron assumes that they do not. “Und such ah nice stone wall outside, duncha thank? But they doon’ call meh McClarty the stone masun, naw doo thay?” The patron is getting a little anxious for the point.
McClarty says, “But yeh fuck ONE goat…”
The point being is that you’re often recognized for the things that you do and that may or may not be the things that you want to get recognized for. That’s beyond your control. The world is going to label you a certain way and that’s generally fine because there’s a 90% chance you’re a decent person– you’ll be labeled as a nice friend, a compassionate parent, a brilliant engineer… or you might be a bad person. Did you know that Stalin wrote poetry? Your high school friends will remember the cringe-iest things about you and that’s fine because you’ll hold their biggest embarrassments at ransom.
You might not get recognized for your writing, at least not in any critical capacity, and that’s fine too.
There are ways, though, to increase your odds, which is, you know, to write as often as you can, constantly improve your work and maintain a decent regimen to produce quality work worthy of recognition. Focus on your writing habits and open yourself to criticism; focus on projects that culminate in cohesive products so that you may move onto the next one.
You might be wondering, then, why I put “a writer writes,” in the bullshit category of common quips? Because, while true, it’s still in the hopes of attaining the “writer” status and while the advice asks you to focus on the grindstone, it’s still an ego trip. Although perhaps “trap” is the better word. As I’ve said before, buttressing your ego with art probably isn’t the healthiest move.
A lot of people want to have written a book and the belief is that you must be a writer to have written one. That perpetuates a certain fantasy that’s detrimental to the actual two components that are required to create anything: time and effort. That fantasy stands as a prohibitive wall between your goal of writing your novel, or screenplay, or mollusk-based erotica (you know, whatever you’re into) that prevents you from devoting that essential time and effort.
Actually writing isn’t sexy. It’s lonesome work that robs your loved ones of your time. It’s studying narrative structure in books and film until it’s ingrained into your fingers. It’s reading the same sentence over and over again until it doesn’t make sense. It’s trying to make sense of a history of stories in such a way that your own can wedge itself into. That doesn’t get a whole lot of light in the “Hollywood” portrayal of writers. The much maligned Californication doesn’t focus on the actual writing (an entire novel is apparently written off screen, hunted and pecked on a typewriter no less) so much as it fixates on the booze and the tits and the oh good lord my life is shit because I’m a shitty but handsome person. Midnight in Paris doesn’t focus on the writing either, favoring instead to examine the ways authors compare themselves to the classics. While that movie does a better job about describing the work (“writing and re-writing and re-writing the re-writes…”), it still fails to snare an honest moment of writing. Even one of my favorite movies, Wonderboys, which does an excellent job of depicting the distractions and pressures of “writers block” and the fetishization of manuscripts, still doesn’t have a scene longer than two seconds of actual writing. In fact, Goddammit, one of my most hated movies probably has the most accurate portrayal of writing– Goddamn Gatsby has Nick Carraway, in a montage, stressing over his manuscript and organizing the pages fastidiously. But Gatsby doesn’t count, because the movie is garbage and it still seeks to romanticize the art. Which is what movies about writers do. They make the title a tantalizing trophy for the shelf.
I think these movies/series exemplify the nefarious side of the ego-trapped coin. That many seeking to be a writer want the validation of having written a book without applying the effort to actually write one. The reason being, I think, is that they assume it makes them sound intelligent enough to get laid. These chuckleberries don’t understand the self-loathing, disappointment, or solitary ecclesiastic heights of the creative process, or the frustration of mild success. After some years of this, I stand aghast. Why would you want to pretend to be a writer? Don’t you know that this is a sickness?
Don’t pretend to write to get laid. Don’t write to get laid (because that’s just not gonna happen, friend). Don’t get down on yourself because you’re not famous. Don’t let the title of craft steer you away from the craft itself. Don’t give yourself a title at all. Dig into the work because you’re lucky enough to be crazy enough to enjoy this literary parade. It’s better to think of yourself as just someone who writes than a writer.
And if anyone claims to be a writer at a party and claims Hank Moody as one of their influences absolutely do not fuck them.
And keep the goat alone.
Pierre Manchot 