You Can’t Fake Being a Writer
I’m a prolific writer. I dabble in all kinds of writing. I write poems, plays, novels, essays, and nonfiction. I’ve blogged and written for other bloggers. I’ve been paid and I’ve done it for free. I’ve published four books. One book made it to the #1 position in my category on Amazon. I’ve been published in well-known journals and other people’s books. Writing is a way of life, a compulsion as well as form of therapy.
I’ve been playing on Medium for only a few months. I don’t know why it took me so long, because I’m really enjoying it.
I also have shifted my attention away from other forms of social media. I almost entirely gave up Twitter when Trump was President. Instagram was never my favorite place except to post my world photography. Facebook helped me sell a few books and keep in touch with friends. However, I now spend less and less time there, too.
I needed a place to think out loud as well as a place where other people liked to share their thoughts.
In a few short months, I’ve garnered a number of followers on Medium. Some even subscribe to my daily essays and often visit the response section where we dig a little deeper into things. FUN!
I enjoy digging deeper, but small talk not so much.
I have a couple of essays that are attracting lots of readers. Most of these people are total strangers which I prefer. There was a time when I used Facebook to try and attract friends to read my books, but even when I was giving them away for free, most people didn’t follow through.
I soon learned that the energy spent on trying to get friends to support your work produced very small returns and even less satisfaction.
Whenever I shifted my attention and energy to building a niche audience amongst strangers, things improved. It was invigorating. I could let my friends off the hook which I’m sure they appreciated.
Work and friends are carefully compartmentalized now.
The two rarely overlap. I’m very focused on my creative outlets. I also no longer feel that I need to show an interest in a friend’s interests if indeed it truly doesn’t interest me. That may sound a bit harsh but there’s only so much of me to go around.
Mutual interests seem to be inspiring and fun, but forced interests beyond a polite acknowledgement are, well, boring.
Once I stopped trying to get my friends and relatives to support me, I soon realized that they comprised such a small group that other than making me feel seen, their contributions made zero difference to my overall impact on readers. It was the vast ocean of humans that the internet gave me access to that would determine whether I had readers or not.
Even a tiny niche audience would be huge by comparison to my total number of friends. I’m popular but not THAT popular.
Eventually, I learned to accept the plight of being born a writer. It’s a mixed blessing. I didn’t get to choose it. This is who I am, apparently. No one could fake being a writer. The lifestyle is too intense.
Writers are often alone but not necessarily lonely.
We can sit in a public place with our computers and write, but no one else in the room has any idea what the hell we’re doing. We can’t really explain it to them either. If a person sings in a public place, people hear them and most likely will respond. Writers write and often no one else’s eyes ever see what they just wrote.
Yet, we write.
Conversations can trigger the need to write as well. We love to explore the smallest thought, dig deeper and examine underlying meanings. Small talk may not be our forte, yet even small talk will produce a string of connected ideas. We’re listening, but we’re also observing everything around us.
We end up going home after a social encounter and writing about YOU.
I know. I know. It’s almost a form of voyeurism. Strangely obsessive. We’d rather write about how you made us feel than talk about how you made us feel. We’d rather put you in a novel we’re writing than spend too long in a room with you.
It’s not just the act of observing humans that sets the writing wheels in motion.
Blue skies and cold weather, green fields and rushing water, politics and pop culture, good food and sex, even our own fears and idiosyncrasies become material for a writing project.
Maybe I’m only describing myself.
Frankly, I’m not personally acquainted with that many writers. The ones that I do know are usually writing not talking about writing.
Whenever someone tells me about a book they’ve always wanted to write as soon as they discover that I’ve published four books, I instantly know they’re not a writer.
Writers write. We can’t help ourselves. If you’ve been thinking about writing a particular story for years and still haven’t picked up a pen, then you’re describing a reader not a writer. You might like to read a book like that, but you’re never going to write a book like that unless you hire a ghost writer.
Ghost writing!
Now that’s a weird concept. I’ll save that topic for another day, because an idea just popped into my head.
Yep! I’m feeling the urge to write.
Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
