Am I Really a Writer?

A crisis of confidence

Maybe we all do it, we aspirant authors novelists scribblers … we spend more time ‘writing about writing’ * than we do on a piece of work that hints at the notion we might be an actual writer.

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* As if to prove my point, I have a section in this publication dedicated to ‘writing about writing’. There you have it, we have no further witnesses to call, case closed. See also, this post, and I would like 18 other offences taken into consideration.

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So, here’s the confession …

I’m scared to commit to my words. Not any words. The words. The story I have nagging away at me. The idea and the words to bring it to life. I ask myself, why won’t you commit? What is stopping you? I manage to gather interesting content for two newsletters every week … I even write a few words to ‘top and tail’ each edition. Usually, I spend about 4 hours on each one … obviously, I drag that out over two full days as I flit hither and thither procrastinating to Olympic standard. I make tea, wander outside, read a few things that will never make it into that week’s curation … a sandwich here, a biscuit there … I go cycling, emptying my head of everything (including the plotline for the story I mentioned up there). Anyway, I do all that - two newsletters, every single week. In one case, that is very nearly 8 years of newsletter. Yet I fail to write.

Here’s the big question …

Why, oh why [shakes his head disappointedly] can I not commit some of that effort to creative writing (okay, minus the procrastination because that is not getting any of us anywhere).

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Reasons:

1. If I produce something, people will read it and it won’t be half as good as I think it is.

2. I’m scared of mining the emotions at the heart of it.

3. Distractions … I am too damn distractable.

4. Did I mention, I’m worried it will be rubbish - and I don’t just mean a necessary ‘shitty first draft’ (Anne Lamott Bird by Bird) … I mean, the whole thing might be terrible and you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

5. It is easier to write throw-away flash fiction … a modest distraction. Ten minutes, 100 words, tomorrow’s chip paper, newspaper pages blowing down a deserted urban landscape. Easy come, easy go.

6. The tyranny of the blank page (I hear you

   A Novel Solution | Ed Callow
   ).

7. It is WAY easier to blow sunshine in the direction of other writers.

8. Other writers are SO much better.

9. I have been reading books by excellent writers, all the while questioning why I even have notions (I mean, have you read

   Elif Shafak
   … jaw-droppingly good … my paltry offerings retreat back into my fountain pen).

10. Here’s the hard one … I haven’t committed to putting in the work. [speak up, says the echo of my old headmaster as we discuss another term of plumbing depths not scaling heights … “I HAVEN’T COMMITTED TO PUTTING IN THE WORK, SIR”). Somehow, I seem to think the words will just appear; ideas will flow; plot lines will unfurl; characters will unveil themselves; the tide will ebb and flow. Sorry, Barrie, says my necessarily stentorian inner voice, writing is not like that.

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The solution … ah, so much easier said than done, but …

Just Write Fiction, Right?

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If you missed it up there ☝️ do check it out down here 👇 … there are practical solutions galore in this piece by

A Novel Solution | Ed Callow

I’m reading this, Ed, you’ve won.

The tyranny of the blank page

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Now, Barrie, perhaps you’ll stop just writing about writing … and, just write.