I remember sitting on a train on my way to visit my cousin the Greater Toronto Area (“GTA”). With pen in hand, and a notebook sitting on the unsteady table in front of me, I inhaled, and said (in my inside voice), “I am a writer.”
It was the first time I admitted it to myself. And, it took me several years to begin to tell random people or to submit my work for publication, let alone share my work with anyone I personally knew.
The journey toward declaring yourself a writer is like going through the 5 stages of grief and loss.
1. Denial and isolation
The first stage is the classic denial of who you are, not to mention the voluntary isolation you need in order to write.
It’s difficult to admit to yourself, let alone anyone else that you are a writer. People want to know what you’ve published. And, if you’ve published absolutely nothing, they give you that look. You know the one that plainly says that you’re not really a writer. You’ve had nothing published, or if you have had something published, they’ve never heard of it. Since Hollywood has not come knocking on your door to option your brilliant work of fiction, in their eyes, ‘You delusional weirdo are a nothing, a nobody, a loser.’
2. Anger
This frustration leads to anger. You become irritable and hard to live with. So difficult in fact, that your spouse leaves you. Your children decide to go and live with their father. Your ever patient and faithful dog even runs away from home.
Now you find yourself writing poetry.
Or worse, you’ve decided to learn how to play guitar and begin to write country songs.
There is hope. It’s called meditation and classical music. But who needs that garbage? You rage against the granola eating, tree-hugging, love-peace-and-not-war hippies and throw on some heavy metal until your elderly neighbour calls the police on you.
Then, you limp quietly to the next stage.
3. Bargaining
Bargaining is my favourite stage.
You rage at God/the Creator/the universe for making you this way and ask Him to remove the gift he has so graciously bestowed upon you. If you believe in reincarnation, you probably believe you’ve done something completely reprehensible in a past life.
You weep and wail and tear your clothes, crying out, “Why me, Lord? What did I ever do to you?”
Maybe bargaining isn’t my favourite stage. It gives way to the next stage, where bad habits and addictions are formed. We are truly on the edge of …
4. Depression
Writers do not see the world the way others see it. I think we really see it in all its forms – the good and the bad. I might even argue that we do not see the world but feel it. And this feeling lends its way nicely with depression. I say writers do not drink because our lives are so much more difficult than other’s lives. No, we drink because writing is hard. And feeling is harder. Forcing yourself to really look inside of you, is horrid. I mean, why would you torture yourself like this. Most people don’t. So, some writers turn to the bottle. (Or, maybe it’s the editing process that turns a teetotaler into a raging alco!)
My favourite part of being a creative person is that I find that I am depressed when I am not writing, and I am depressed when I am writing. A colleague asked me how they would know the difference. My response, “You won’t.”
5. Acceptance
And finally, there is peace or rather resignation in acceptance.
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamothe helped me see who I truly am. She told us writers not to be concerned about publishing. She said writer’s write! We will learn and grow from the process of writing. We will learn nothing from publishing, other than the fact that the book launch will last all of five minutes, only your dearest friends will show up and the critics (if you’re lucky enough for anyone to even know that you have published a book), will tear your beloved work to shreds, ensuring the masses won’t even bother to buy it even if it’s in a one dollar bin (which is where it will likely end up).
It was this sage advice that helped me accept who I truly am – a writer. This is a fact and is not dependent on anyone’s disappointed reaction to my lack of publishing or anything else for that matter. What a triumph!
* It is important to note that writers who are coming to terms with their creative self, do not necessarily go through the stages in the same order or experience all of them. So, put down the bottle and pick up a pen.