Last night I got a little sick of writing my NaNoWriMo novel thinking it was just too dreadful, going back and forth between chuck it and there’s plenty of time for editing. Chuck it was winning. For the first time I reread from the beginning what I have written so far. Surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. I didn’t bother with any editing (and there certainly has to be some a lot) but the main thing I was concerned about was the voice of my protagonist. I want her voice to change slightly throughout, with her having a very different voice at the end of the story than when it started. I don’t know if that’s going to actually happen or not, but I was satisfied to see her voice wasn’t all over the board only 15,000 words into the story. My writing tends to come out differently with my changing moods, and I was afraid the tone of my story would reflect that and not have any continuity. Listen to me, talking about protagonists and continuity. I sound like a real writer!
Jane Austen was a writer. A real writer. But does the fact that she’s been published and that her works are considered classics make her more of a writer than I am? Well, sort of, I guess.
I’m still not on board with the whole “if you write you are a writer” thing, but it kind of makes sense. If one plays the piano she is a pianist whether she does so professionally or not. If I write then I am a writer. It seems like people have different expectations when you tell them you are something. That’s bugged me for a long time. When people ask “what do you do?” how does one respond? I cook, I clean, I write, I craft…the list can go on and on. But when someone asks “what do you do?” they’re always referring to your profession, or how you earn your money. For those of us who earn a living with a job we feel no passion for, that question can be annoying at the very least. To a stranger or acquaintance we’re defined by our jobs and it’s only until someone gets to know us that we become more complex and interesting. We could be interesting at the outset if we told strangers what we really do rather than how we earn money.
How great would it be if when asked “what do you do?” people answered with what they do to find joy in life rather than their profession. If they answered “I’m a writer” because they keep a journal. If they answered “I’m a baker” because they love the feel of flour on their hands. We’d find out more about who that person is rather than how they earn money. Or maybe we should change our initial question to “what do you like to do?”
Right now I’m a writer. It’s consuming a lot of my time, and whether it will eventually earn some money for me or not it is, among many other things, who I am. Now, off I go to do that voodoo I do so well.*
* You don’t even have to do what you do well to claim it as what you do. That’s the beauty of it all!
Auntie B's Wax 