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I made this “Pokemon Go Pregnancy Announcement” for a friend and wanted to share the template! (download layered PSD file)
 #throwback (unknown date … 1996?)
"It's a fine thing to be able to write a story; an exciting way to live." Andy Hoffman (my writing teacher commenting on my first short story) How do I define myself as a writer? I've grappled with this question for the past five years, asking myself initially (more importantly?), Am I writer? Or, is it something I merely aspire to be? Sometimes I feel like I'm not - I haven't read enough or written enough. enough that's good ...enough that's entirely made up. I write too much about myself or people I know... stories so real they're fake, a fiction fraud. A friend, imagining me teaching a writing class, jokingly said, "Leah's Guide to Creative Writing: Hang out with people who say clever things and take good notes.” Is being a writer a state of being or must I create product? Achieve success? (I mentally list my stories: Fortune Teller Fish, Kamikaze Butterfly, Scars, Proof, The Sandal Dilemma -- DONE; Picture Yourself, Mary Elizabeth, Distance, The Interview, Role Model - IN PROGRESS; and visualize promising, hand-written rejection notes from Story and Seventeen). Can writer-status be self-proclaimed [imagine something like that person standing with the sign, "I am an artist," except the person holds a pen with the inscription, “I am a writer"], or must it be earned, like a degree? Or, are writers determined by critics, by time? My stories have been a combination of imagination, prediction, and life description. In my first story, I wrote characters who were people I wanted to be, wanted to know. But then I started writing about things that happened to me. Issues I was struggling with or those affecting friends and family. Recently, I've had my phase of angst - chronicling tales of obsessive thinking and family psyche. Not necessarily because I had nothing else to say, but because that's what I needed to write at the time. Now, I wonder if my strongest stories are the ones inspired around me instead of inside me or those I've yet to write. "The voice is the triumph of the story." My stories are more about voice, less about plot. More than once my work has met with the criticism: "But nothing happens." Something to work on ... DEADLINES. I need them. I thrive on them. I fear I'll fail without them. Every finished story (and most of the works-in-progress) was a product of workshops. Without a class to prompt me, I've gone years without finishing anything. Does this make me a non-practicing writer (like my absence from church makes me a non-practicing Catholic)? CRITICISM. I need that, too. Someone to say, "Add this, subtract that." confirm. People-in-the-know who say, "This is good. Publishable." Affirm, (Something I might not believe if it's only my opinion.) How do I define myself as a writer? It's not so much dependent on what I've done so far, but what I want ... what I need to do. Read more (every day). Write more (every day). Take risks. Be bold. And, make things up. |
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