cathschaffstump | Writer/Poser (Reply)

ETA: Really, this is all tongue-in-cheek. I have no secret agenda that I wish to inflict upon other writers, or some secret superiority that I'm suggesting with any of these speculations.

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It's the last day of Bryon's chem guy workshop, and his last workshop for the summer. Getting away to the curriculum bunker clearly worked for me, and after completing my real world tasks, I've turned out to have a mini-vacation. During this one, I've been reading, writing, AND exercising. For the first vacation in quite some time, I bought exercise gear with me and used the hotel's work out room. Not skinny (did I tell you I went to my favorite college pizza place for lunch yesterday? Mmm, whole wheat crust and super cheese poundage!)

Today I'm sitting in the Caribou Coffee in the middle of campus, plugged into a wall, writing. Scrivener is open, and I'm warming up by writing to all of you. I *look* like a writer, but the actuality is that, until I stop dinking around on the Internet, I'm a poser.

***

Which makes me think about this: do you have to work with your text every day to be a writer? Well, no. There are days when your subconscious needs to do some work. It does seem to be a question of balance, however. And so, here are some questions I think about sometimes.

Do you write more than you dink on the internet? Do you revise more than you think about writing? Do you have confidence enough to actually put crap on paper (and I mean crap not in the sense of things, but crap in the sense of stinky prose.) , or are you afraid of the blank screen?

Do you not only talk to other people about your writing, but also let others see it, give you their opinions, and not take them personally? Are you okay with revising your writing if the observations are reasonable? Are you capable of taking or leaving information, because in the end it's your story and your call?

Would you rather Wii than write? And do you write, in spite of the fact that you'd rather Wii? Are you afraid to cut words, or are you capable of looking at the story holistically? Could you start over if someone told you it was crap, and it was?

Do you send your work out? Do you pick yourself up after rejection? In the end, do you find personal satisfaction in your work, regardless of those rejections?

How do you feel about butt in chair? How do you feel about ramen as a life style? Or, if you choose to work, how do you feel about kissing your free time good bye? Will giving these things up to write something make you satisfied, or do you just like thinking about sunglasses and autographs?

Would you rather critique, work on your web page, play Wii, or dink around on the Internet rather than get back to the manuscript? Is being thought of as a writer cooler, than, you know, writing?

Can you live without writing? Does writing make you feel better at the end of the day? About being alive? Would you rather avoid the bad vibes of sending work out? Or do you want to get battle scars to cherish?

Do you day dream about your break? Do you hope it will come with your first manuscript?

Do you know that you are a writing genius, better than all other writers in the world? Do you know that your writing sucks, and you wonder why you do it? Do you have both of these ideas in your head at the same time? Are you neurotic enough to write?

***

I have no answers to these. You could be a writer or a poser, based on any answer, because there are no right answers. My insecurity is as tiny as a mustard seed and as vast as a Midwestern landscape.

Which might, in the end, make me a writer. But if I were a poser, I would never tell you.