Two parts of your comment really struck me: first is your point about the before and after line. You’re absolutely right, of course, and I suppose we can all just define the point at which we become writers for ourselves. (And maybe all humans with the ability to write are writers: no more and no less.)

I also appreciated your reminder about labels: “It’s what you write that really matters.”

I don’t think it works the same for writers…if we publish or we get famous or we make money or we simply want to call ourselves a writer we are, suddenly, writers. There is no before and after line. But I don’t think that makes it any less true, because once I’ve dedicated my time and myself to something, and I do it every day, I’m fine with defining myself by that. Writer, mother, lactivist, whatever. It’s just a label. It’s what you write that really matters.

I find it really interesting that, even though you’ve achieved the brass ring many of us shoot for (i.e. publication), you still don’t use the “w” word to refer to yourself. What would it take, do you think?

I think that I will dust off East of Eden and revisit Cain’s journey, to be reminded by a master “the importance of making our offerings and, if like Cain’s they are not received, we must not go destructive but rather simply make another offering.”

Others will encourage, and they are right to do so (I too can’t help it—as you have talent), however I want to give voice to the darker side. I’ve long struggled with fear of success and no one can talk me out of it. I have no stomach for true self-promotion, but every passion for true discourse. I have tried to sell out, and no one has bought. I have had Hollywood producers tell me I should move to Europe, because they make films about real things and ideas over there. I have had European producers tell me that I’m brave to quote Jung trying to sell a dark story (which ultimately they would not make)… and after eighteen unproduced screen plays (many very nearly produced, but how much does that really count for) and an as-yet unpublished book… I can at least be clear that I’m a writer (which took me a long time to own, so I relate to your question).

Perhaps the hardest thing of all is dealing with the fact that upon being published (based on observation, not experience) the really important things do not change.

And then, continuing further into the darkness, there are so many of my most admired writers from Bettelheim to Durrell who, after all the success a writer or thinker could hope for, go and off themselves. This does little to assuage fears that success will not shush the howlings of the beast.

And then there’s Dostoevsky who would take his earnings and deliberately gamble them away so as to be in the only mind-set from which he could work—broke.

In my view, we write because we must, we write to heal ourselves, we write because we love and want to be loved and understood.

You have a true voice, and you’re brave… as for how the world receives your work, my hunch is that it will receive it well, but the zeitgeist and the trickster decide. I find comfort in the wisdom of Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” that distills down to the importance of making our offerings and, if like Cain’s they are not received, we must not go destructive but rather simply make another offering.

Maybe our blogs, and our comments are our offerings (at least in part), maybe they’re sketches for larger works, maybe they’re laboratories to refine our thinking and maybe they allow us to contribute and get back connection by way of our writerly leanings.

So, write away, Kristen… you already have a lot of us rooting for you and sincerely interested in what you have to say.

Namaste

You write beautifully! I love your posts! You speak to me with your words and that’s all that matters… getting your message across!