What Kind of Writer Are You?

I have asked myself this question many times, taken online quizzes and submitted samples for analysis and at the end of it all I’ve determined that I don’t one hundred percent know what kind of writer I am.  I should know.  Shouldn’t I?   I know what I like to write.  I like to write poetry when I’m particularly stressed or emotional.  I write quickly without any rules and let the words arrive of their own volition.  There was a time when I wrote a poem every night before bed.  I wrote them all at once, without stopping to edit or revise or allow myself time to think about it much.  And I found this kind of writing gave me a tremendous sense of release.  Other times I write in vignettes painting a picture with broad gestures and very little shading. These stories usually arrive as a whole at inopportune moments and I find myself scrambling for some paper and a pencil and write until the story is done or my brain kicks in and puts an end to it.  Sometimes I write historical fiction.  I like the narrative, the flowery prose, the use of language.  And I like to write for children.  

If you asked me what kind of a book I would most like to publish, the genre I would most like to be known for, I would have to say that I would like to be known as a children’s author.  I’d be over the moon to be able to tell a story like Kate DiCamillo does or Roald Dahl or Brian Selznick or J.K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman.  I love the imagination behind children’s fiction.   I love the idea that parents are flawed, that animals talk and that little boys can live in clock towers or become wizards or be raised in graveyards.  It is a magical genre and I want to be a magician.  

Writing for children satisfies the part of me that is unwilling to grow up.  Or is it unable?  When I sit down to work on a children’s story I feel a certain sense of melancholy.  It’s painful.  I think it’s fear.  I’m afraid that I want it so badly that I’ll never get it.  I feel like I’m 12 years old with my eye on a new bike and only 3 dollars in my piggy bank.  I want the bike, I’m working for the bike, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll ever get the bike.  The thing is that if I don’t do the work I remove the possibility.

Possibilities are what children’s books are all about. 

Today I watched Neil Gaiman’s 2012 commencement speech ‘Make Good Art’.  He talked about worry and how it kept him from enjoying the journey some of the time.  It’s keeping me from enjoying the journey as well.  Not that I’m in the same stratosphere as Mr. Gaiman as a writer but he is also a human who worries sometimes.

I’ve decided that I am a multi-faceted writer just as I am a multi-faceted person.  I don’t have to pick one.  I just have to make good art. 

I Doubt It

My writing life has been hounding me for years.  It’s like a terrier that yaps at my feet until I pay attention to it or take it for a walk or give it a treat.  I want to ignore it but it won’t let me.

When I’m writing regularly, as I am now, I should be on top of the world.  I should be proud of myself for sitting down every day and putting words on paper.  But instead I am plagued by self doubt.  When doubt creeps in the little terrier that begs me to write something down, that whines until I have, runs away with his tail between his legs then hides under the bed until it’s safe to come out again.

 I have written reams on what a shitty, shitty writer I am and why I should close up my laptop for good and toss it.  I have tried over and over to convince myself that my writing is a hobby, one I could easily trade for knitting or ceramics.  I have tried to let it go because it is painful to hear me talk to myself like I do.  It is painful to want something so badly but feel that you may never achieve it.  It’s beyond frightening to think that what I tell myself might actually be true and that I might suck more epically than any writer that has ever put pen to paper.  And then....just as I’m about to hit the ‘delete’ key the terrier will poke his head out from the dust ruffle.  He’ll creep closer and maybe lick my ankle or nudge my leg.  He’ll look up at me with those puppy dog eyes as if to say ‘so what?’  Then he’ll start to whine a little and just to keep him quiet I’ll write a poem or two.   When he’s satisfied he’ll creep back to his bed and go to sleep.  The only way to keep him quiet is to write. Because as hurtful as all this self doubt is, it is far more distressing to think that I quit, that I gave up on something that meant so much to me.  It’s impossible not to write.   And if I’m not the greatest writer, so what?

When doubt gets really bad, when it threatens to erase an entire manuscript or clear the contents of my computer I look to my bookshelves for inspiration and pull out the worst novels I can find.  Every author should stock a few.  I pick them up in the 99 cent bin once in a while and in times of great duress I open them and curl up on the couch with my terrier and read a line or two and think the thought that keeps all would be novelists coming back to the desk, “if they can do it....”