On my last day in Maui all I wanted to do was write.
I don’t call myself a writer, though that opposes the lesson from The War on Art: stop treating yourself like an ameatur. Be a professional. Call yourself a writer. Show up like a writer. This is your fucking job.
Writing is not my fucking job. After graduating with my writing degree and handful of readable stories, I’ve quietly put writing to bed. Not at first. No. I’ve said I’d keep working on my story. Write my poetry. Publish a book.
But in my mind I’d made a choice: working in publishing and being a writer or building a life with the man I was going to marry. I know it didn’t have to be a choice. I know I could have had both. I know it seems shallow that I chose the latter. But chasing book editor aspirations in New York seemed cheap compared to the life I imagined in my partnership.
It’s not an excuse, but I made it one. I got a job: a really good one. I was removed from my east coast community of writers and friends headed to work in publishing houses and I didn’t do anything to discover a new community. I got better at my job, started loving it, and found salvation in it. The life I imagined had fallen apart, but I had found space for myself to be successful and happy.
I say I write on the side. Some poetry. Sometimes I work on a story. Mostly I haven’t. I don’t submit writing to publications. I don’t write every day. I’ve started saying that I like writing but writing isn’t my ambition. I don’t need to publish a book. That doesn’t need to be my path. I have other goals, other dreams.
I do have other goals, other dreams. But in my messy condo bedroom on our family vacation I saw something in my eyes I haven’t seen in years.
God, yes. I’m going to write. I’m a writer. Though I could fill a lifetime of excuses not to be.
I don’t know why it hit me so clearly then. I’d started writing more before that moment. In the fall I’d begun doing long writing sessions again. With this blog, I’m making sure I write every day. A friend attended a writer’s retreat last year and told me to consider applying. They told me months ago and I shrugged it off. Writing wasn’t my ambition.
I changed my mind. In the act of preparing to apply, I felt like I was taking my writing seriously for the first time. Regardless if I get accepted – and it is definitely a long shot – this process gave me a glimpse of a potential path ahead. Where I’m a writer. God, yes. I want that. It’s terrifying. It’s a path with a lot of rejection and failure. My skin will need to thicken. My heart will be broken.
My personal vision statement is a guidepost here: I am brave. I show up. I move forward.
It’s time I get brave with writing. It’s time I show up for it. I’m ready to move forward and see what happens when I take this ambition seriously. Let’s see what happens when writing is my fucking job.
With Love,
Natalie