Ilona Andrew’s Paragraph Update

Ilona is back at it. I've added her latest two paragraph updates to the master post.

Not much else to say. Old car died this morning, and that's kind of where I've been, and what I've been doing. Later, writers.

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Your Writerly Sense of Self

Someone very wise to me said recently that the people who succeed in a field are those who think they are the thing, rather than wanting to be the thing. The authority she cited was James Paul Gee, who has been talking a lot about the educational quality of video games. Hey, as someone who worked in literacy studies in college, I approve of James Paul Gee.

This made me think about the authorly self, and by extension, the artistic self.

I believe people grasp the idea that if you consider yourself an artist, you create. There are many people who have a hard time finishing a work for a variety of reasons. However, most of us grasp the art of creation, and all of the pitfalls, twists, and rewards therein. We understand often what it is to be an artist at the creative level, even if we don't understand how our creativity works, or sometimes have trouble with making it work.

Sarah Prineas has often discussed the idea of being an author versus being a writer in her journal. The artist I've talked about above, the writer, generally creates, but isn't necessary good at putting that creative work out there. I've heard many artists frustrated at the idea of presenting themselves, promoting themselves, managing themselves, and putting themselves out there. For many of us, it feels uncomfortable. That persona is the author.

I think it's important to develop our authorly persona in conjunction with working on our writing. Not more important, because if you don't have the work, you got nothin' to be confident about. It is worth it to think about your professional persona and image as you build your work.

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Mirrored from Writer Tamago.