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i am: 40...a capricorn / moon in pisces / libra rising...an old soul with a young spirit...older than i look...contemplating my 3rd tattoo...NOT a web designer...a lesbian...working things out with the g.f....a native iowan...a graduate of cornell college and ohio state...a critical reader and thinker...really rather shy...agnostic...an ardent feminist...a bleeding-heart liberal...a pacifist...and so not your average white grrl...
e-mail me
feeling generous? *grin*
Who Links Here
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June 13, 2002
what is a "writer"?the other day, someone asked me the "so...what do you do?" question. when i said that i'm a writer/editor at a university, she wanted to know what kinds of things i write. i gave my standard answer..."news releases, brochure copy, funding proposals...that kinda thing." and her response was simply: oh. i suppose she was expecting some kinda "sexy" answer...books...or complex research papers...or even speeches for the president. she was clearly disappointed. and it's not that her opinion was particularly important to me; i don't even know her. but her reply got me to thinking about what exactly constitutes "a writer."
except for the fact that it's my livelihood, i've never really had that "i need to write to survive" thing goin' on, that so many writers have...not on some deeply personal, spiritual level. now, i've wished for that...it's always been something i wish i felt. it sure as hell would have made my career and even my path in life a whole lot clearer...and then i could claim to be a writer in what i believe to be the truest sense of the word.
but the truth is, i spend most of my time at work taking other people's writing (and/or tangled webs of thought) and making it sound better...certainly more grammatically correct (i'm known department-wide as "the expert")...but also just plain more effective...with sounder arguments, relevant illustrations (verbal and otherwise), clear transitions and, of course, the ever-unpopular adherence to university style guidelines. many times, i do end up doing a lot of writing, in addition to this editing...adding transitions that work and other necessary components...so it's not as if i'm not doing any actual writing; i am. and i'm good at it; i'm very good at what i do...probably, at least in part, because i was really good at writing academic papers (the 1986 one arguing for a lesbian interpretation of toni morrison's sula, using the lesbian continuum theory put forth by adrienne rich in her seminal essay on "compulsory heterosexuality," being one of my very favorites *grin*). my work has helped to secure private gifts to the university of as much as $30 million (including at least that much in those multiple, tho far less significant, $1 million gifts)...and has helped to spread the news of those gifts, inspiring and encouraging others to give. of course, i can't take full credit for any of them—major gifts are typically the result of years of relationship-building on the part of many—but i don't doubt that my work has "sealed the deal" on more than one occasion.
but does all that make me a "writer"? or something else?
i've realized that what i really want to be is a creative writer. but while i'm creative...and a writer....i know, from experience, that i pretty much suck at creative writing. my feeble attempts at writing poems have produced that one phenomenon that we all wish would just go away: really bad poetry. my lone short story—produced in the one creative writing course i took in college (among the ton of english courses i took for my major)—was downright embarrassing (maybe it was that dream sequence i tried to incorporate *chucklin'*), earning me a b+ for the course (nothing less than inexcusable for an actual english major in an english course).
i don't know what it is, exactly. sometimes i think it's because, prior to this 'blog, i've never kept a journal (unless it was for a course and therefore, required and temporary)...not even a pen-and-paper one...and most all of the poets and writers i know (and know of) have journaled (is that a word?) from get. but i never did that. growing up, no one—not even the teachers who noticed that i had at least some level of talent for the written word—encouraged me to journal, and i guess i never really thought of doing it, myself. as an adult, i actually tried journaling at a couple of points (at the suggestion of my therapist)...but my entries always came out sounding whiny and pathetic (kinda like, uhhhh, this one does a lot of the time *chucklin'*), and i just couldn't bear it....so i quit before i'd done it a week. when i tried going back to it, the words just wouldn't flow.
i think it's also because i was in school (including college and most of graduate school) before the concept of drafting was a common writing practice...that is, before computers took over the world. from elementary school on, i wrote my papers from start to finish, crafting and re-crafting each paragraph as i went along, rather than just getting my thoughts down on paper in a "first draft" and going back later to revise and refine it. in fact—up until the last paper i wrote for the last graduate course i took, prior to all those "independent study" hours during which i wrote (or was supposed to be writing) my master's thesis—i actually wrote all my papers, in their entirety, in longhand, and typed them up on an old army-green ibm selectric typewriter that i had bought (used!) with my high school graduation gift money!! some of my peers were more technologically savvy, and were already using computers and/or (as t.a.s) teaching their requisite freshman comp. courses in a computer-based format...but i wasn't alone. the only reason i really even learned how to use a computer in the first place was because i refused to write a 100+ page document (i.e., my thesis) longhand...only to have to type it, and then retype it repeatedly, to make the revisions suggested by my advisors. so... call me lazy. *grin*
but ahhhhh...enough whining and excuses. probably the biggest reasons that i have no creative writing skills are that 1) i simply lack the talent for that kind of writing; and 2) i lack the drive to actually practice creative writing in order to get better at it (call me crazy...or lazy...but after doing it all day, i'm really in no mood for what only seems like more work after i get home). and that doesn't have to be such a horrible thing, as i recognize my talents in other areas. nonetheless, it doesn't stop me from longing to be a "real" writer...and wishing that i had what it takes to just be one.
fortunately, i'm never at a loss for interesting things to read—probably my very favorite thing to do, and what i've always considered to be "research" for writing my own book someday (however uncreative it will be *grin*).
12:04 PM
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