From Navé:
IT'S OVER. Last Thursday, Allegra Huston and I finished our first (after a six-year hiatus) four-day in-person Imaginative Storm Writing Workshop at Hacienda Del Sol B & B in Taos. Dr. Jane Goldberg kicked off our first session by passing out buttons that said, "Dare to Imagine.“ We devoted our mornings to generative writing and our afternoons to salon conversations that touched on writing, culture, performance, creativity, storytelling, and identity.
AM I A WRITER? In our second afternoon salon conversation, the first question was, "When can I say I'm a writer?" "Good question," I said. “Which is it, a question of identity or a question about what you do?"
I pointed out that most people who drive cars never say, "I'm a driver," unless they're chauffeurs. They say instead, "I can drive." or "I drive." Someone else in the group offered, "When you think about it, driving is demanding and dangerous, yet most of us steer our four thousand pound vehicles down the Interstate highways at 70 miles an hour like we're pushing baby carriages."
CHOOSE ONE: "I WRITE" or "I'M A WRITER." I said, "If we don't bother to identify ourselves as drivers, why should we worry about identifying ourselves as writers? Why not just write, and if someone wants to call you a writer, say thank you and leave it at that?"
As this idea of doing (I write) instead of being (I am a writer) settled, our salon group agreed that there's much less pressure in saying, "I write" than in saying, "I am a writer." Our group concluded that once you remove the "I am" pressure, the fun begins, which makes telling your stories, written or otherwise, more fluid and enjoyable, even when you're facing those hard truths you've kept secret for years.
"I'M A POET." — IN PARIS Fifteen years ago, while I was visiting my friend John van Hasselt in Paris, we went to the local café, Bar du Marché, to have coffee. We were leaning against the bar when John turned to me and said, “I think you have a big problem because the first thing you do when you meet someone is tell them you're a poet. It's a bit embarrassing. Why not let it seep out slowly? It'll give you an air of mystery rather than being so damn obvious."
I realized John was right. There was no reason for me to push my identity as a poet, so I lightened up. Instead of leading with "I'm a poet," I started mentioning in conversations that I write poetry, which is what I do, not who I am. I've visited John many times since then, and I'm still writing poetry.
From Allegra:
This one swings both ways.
One day, or perhaps night, on a flight from London to LA, in 1996 or thereabouts, I was filling out the landing card that we had to give to immigration to enter the US. Name, address while in the US, are you bringing more than $10,000 in cash (!), have you been on a farm or ranch outside the US, and innocently buried in the middle of the form: “occupation.”
I’d quit my job in publishing on my thirtieth birthday in 1994, and I wasn’t going back. I was, I think, on the verge of quitting my follow-up job, as development and acquisition consultant for Pathé Films. Even if I wasn’t on the verge of quitting, “development and acquisition consultant” didn’t fit in the little box. They wanted one word.
I wrote “writer.”
Gulp. I’d hardly written anything, just a few travel articles for British publications that had defrayed the cost of my holidays. I hoped to write screenplays, but the single one I’d written had been basically eviscerated by the few people who read it.
So, there it was: I’d lied. On an official form. I was genuinely afraid of the consequences. But I didn’t ask for a blank form to start again. Once I’d written the word, I couldn’t take it back. I’d thrown my heart over the fence.
That phrase comes from hunting (my dad was joint master of the Galway Blazers, in Ireland). You’re galloping after a fox, adrenaline rushing, jumping whatever fence or wall is in the way. Oh no—look what’s up ahead! You see other riders jump it. Probably some fall, or the horse refuses, or both. If you don’t jump it, you’re done for the day. So, you throw your heart over the fence, and you have no choice but to follow it.
I sweated it out for another hour or so on the plane, and held my breath through immigration. Would I have to prove that I was a writer? As if the US government cared!
I cared. Even though I didn’t really write, putting “writer” on that form was a way to make myself write, however fiercely my inner critic—and outer critics—tore me down. I wanted to persevere. I needed to take myself seriously as a writer despite recent evidence to the contrary. Getting through immigration in “writer” disguise made me feel I could do it.
A decade passed before I even started to work on my memoir (and first published book), Love Child. But now that I saw myself as a writer, I had a bit more courage to propose magazine articles that weren’t just travel pieces. I wrote more screenplays (none produced, but much better than that first one). Freelance editing still paid my bills, but it wasn’t who I was. I edited, but from that day on, in my own eyes, I was a writer.
Please! We’re both really curious to hear your stories. And please feel free to share this post.
The pair of you have turned my thinking upside down. Having spent the last X number of years working to convince myself I am a human BEING (Allegra's "I am a writer"), I must pause to ponder if I would be better off as a human DOER (A's "I write"). What is "better off?" A more prolific writer? More successful? Pages flying out of my printer like cards dealt by a high-strung poker dealer. I have been unemployed for so long (as a financial analyst in mergers & acquisitions - a REAL job, so they say), that no one asks me anymore what I DO. I DID raising 2 children. One is a successful businesswoman. The other graduated last weekend with and MD and PhD. Their achievements, not mine, which brings me back to the question: what am I or what do I do?
Long before circumstances ever led me to business school, I dreamt of writing and publishing books. Especially memoir. Sometimes you are so busy slaying dragons in your story, there is little time or energy to write it down. I am ready to write it down. Whether "I write" or "I am a writer" matters for forms (I hear you, Allegra-going from writing "Housewife" - the word should be banished because really, who is married to their house? - to "Writer" on government forms - was epic). It may matter to others in coffee shops or bars who need a recitation of your work to validate your statements. It does not matter to our fellow writers who know the gumption it takes to make either statement. The swallowing of self-recriminating bile that precedes the flow of these words. Most of all, it does not matter to me because underneath that 5-letter transitive verb lies the entire rainbow of human emotion. It is the joyfulness of a maestro bidding all instruments to come together in their most pleasing voice. It is the urgency of an advocate trumpeting a message the world needs to hear. It is the whisper that soothes in times of sorrow and the bells that ring in days of triumph. In the end, I am a writer because I write.
P.S. Nave-you already have an air of mystery ;)
Men have been shaming women for hundreds of years out
Of taking ourselves seriously . This is another example. Don’t be shamed out of calling yourself what you are:
A writer